Frosty Relations
by youngjusticefanatic
Summary: After Scorpia rising. Alex goes on a raid with Ben and finds something or some people who are dead... aren't they? Alex and Ben brotherly bonding, Kunit and undead family members.T to be safe. Was once 'the result of a raid'. no slash. Spellings corrected
1. Chapter 1

**Don't Own Anything**

* * *

Alex was tired. Technically he had been living on his own for 9 months. Only technically because Ben Daniels had taken it upon himself to become a big brother of a sort and visit every other day if he wasn't on a mission. Today just happened to be one of those days he visited... he had a tendency to come ridiculously early for some reason yet Alex was still not used to is. So, when Ben came into Alex's room (he had once stolen Alex's house key and made a copy so he could let himself into the house) shouting "MORNING SUNSHINE" and quickly pulling the curtains back letting in the dreadfully bright morning light Alex was not happy. He groaned loudly and pulled the covers high above his head and tried to wriggle into a comfortable position.

"If I were to guess I would say you're not happy to see me." Ben said with mocking hurt. The wriggling under the covers stopped and Alex's hand came out from under the covers. Ben was ready to dodge expecting something to come flying his way. Instead Alex lifted his middle finger and then let his arm flop and groaned something that distinctly sounded like a swear word. The one day in a week that Alex had slept the whole way through without a nightmare or disruption had been ruined. Ben laughed at the boy's antics and walked closer to the bed silently with an evil plan in his mind. He lightly grabbed a corner of the end of the duvet in each hand. He waited a few seconds and just before he could rip the covers off of the boy Alex shouted from under the duvet, "If you even think about doing that you're dead!"

Ben grinned. Even half asleep Alex knew what he was thinking. Finally Alex sat up and flicked the covers off of his face.

"You know, you're going to have to teach me how you know what a person's next move is." Ben said and then laughed when he say Alex's morning hair. Alex saw him looking at his hair and tried (and failed) to flatten it down.

"It's the trait of a spy." Alex said casually.

"Hey! I am a spy." Ben cried

"The trait of a good spy." Alex said trying to keep the grin off his face. Ben glared. "Is there any particular reason why you came or was it just to annoy me and get your arse whooped by a teenager who is a better spy then you?" Alex asked yawning.

"You haven't whoo-" Ben was cut off by Alex lunging at him and seconds later Ben was on the ground.

"You were saying?" Alex said getting up and turning to change his shirt.

"The bank wants to see you." Ben grunted as he climbed to his feet. Alex turned around to glare and Ben saw the bullet wound. No matter how many times he had seen it, he still could not get used to the sight, it was not a normal scar for a 15 – wait no 16 – year old boy. Alex had turned 16 five days ago.

Alex was still used by MI6. After Jack had died he had been left alone, literally. They had just left him to live alone and get on with his life. He tried to attend school and be normal. The rumours were flowing round more than ever and Alex was distant in class. Even Tom found it hard to get Alex to talk. In the end he hit another student, an annoying boy who liked to make fun of Alex. Normally Alex paid the boy no attention but then he had mentioned Jack. That was the final straw. Alex had punched the boy so hard that he broke the boy's nose and knocked him unconscious. He was expelled on the spot when he shouted back at Mr Bray, the head teacher. With no guardian and no school, and with MI6 success rate going down, Mrs Jones called him back in. He had nothing in his life apart from living on his own, that was used against him. He was threatened with orphanages and foster care. Alex had no choice. A few days later Alex was sitting on a plane to New Zealand next to his assigned partner, Ben.

"What do they want?" he asked. He had what Ben called his spy face on. His face was completely blank and emotionless and his eyes were hard and cold.

"You remember two missions ago?" Ben asked.

"Yeah, S.O.A (Spying observing, attacking/assassination), somehow connected to SCORPIA weren't they?" Alex asked. Ben nodded.

"The last active branch of SCORPIA. We've found their final warehouse. There's going to be a raid. Mrs Jones wants us to lead three SAS teams on the raid, we're going to bring it down" Ben explained.

"When?"

"Tonight"

"Where?"

"Hidden in a forest in Dartmoor"

"Fine. Now can you get out. I need to finish changing"

Ben grinned and went downstairs. He owed Alex for getting him up early, he also owed Alex an English Breakfast, he might as well just give him an English Breakfast and be done with both debts.


	2. Chapter 2

**Enjoy**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything**

* * *

It was 10 o'clock in the evening and Alex and Ben were waiting for the SAS three miles from the warehouse. Smithers had given them night vision sunglasses which they both wore and Alex was inspecting his surroundings. In the distance they could make out three sets of car headlights heading their way in the dark. A few minutes later the vehicles were switched off and out jumped three units. The men formed a straight line in front of the spies. The leader of each group stepped forwards.

"S unit present" the first man called and stood to attention.

"L unit present" the second man cried and did similar actions to the first.

"K unit present" the last man shouted.

Alex hadn't been paying attention until this point. He spun around and looked at the last man. Ben could see Alex's face as clearly as in day with these glasses on and saw that the boy had been caught off guard. No one else could see his face in the darkness.

There was a moments silence and Ben stepped forwards.

"Did you remember night vision gear?" he asked in a superior voice.

"Yes sir!" the men cried together.

"Go and get it" he ordered. He didn't state his name because he wanted to see the look on their faces when they recognised him. He had been in K unit when he had trained with the SAS and had often worked with L unit. He knew S unit a little bit. They had once attended a shooting seminar together and he had talked with a couple of members in the mess hall once or twice. He was worried how they would all take to Alex though. K unit would probably recognise him and there was a possibility that L unit would. He had done a training exercise them once or twice and their barracks had been next to each other. S unit might realise how young he is and dislike it. It was unlikely that they would recognise him because they had probably only seen Alex in the mess hall or something.

The men came back and started putting on their night vision equipment. Alex did his disappearing act as Ben called it, where he would seem to dissolve into his surroundings, it was a tactic used to hide or not be noticed.

"Fox?" came a questioning voice. Ben grinned.

"Fox are you the spy leading us?" came the voice of Snake. There was a hint of amusement in his tone.

"Yep." he said.

"We're doomed! Doomed!" Eagle said. He whispered the last word.

"Wait," said Hare from N unit, "weren't there meant to be two spies?"

Alex stepped forward. One of the reasons he was a brilliant spy was because he could hide his emotion. He was wearing his spy face. Ben was a bit worried that this might be his normal face now and any emotion was just a cover to act normal.

"Don't I know you somewhere?" asked Snake.

"Yeah, you look familiar." Eagle said. Wolf and some of S unit nodded.

"Cub?" Wolf asked.

"Wait, wasn't Cub that teenager you were telling me earlier. The one put in your unit a few years ago?" asked Cheetah. He was the new member in K unit, Fox's replacement.

"Yeah" Alex grunted, "that's me. Now back to the mission"

"Hang on a sec!" came the cry from a member in N unit, Badger was his name, "we're not taking orders from no kid! How old are you anyway? 15? How did you even get into special op?"

There were nods of agreements and a few murmurs. Ben was about to speak up but Alex beat him to it.

"I don't give a damn what you think of me and you shouldn't give a damn about my age. If you don't want to follow orders from me then be prepared to leave the SAS for not following your superiors. If you dislike it go chat it out with Mrs Jones and then when she ignores you, go cry to your mummy."

Everyone could see Badger was angry at what Alex had said but the way he had said it kept the man quiet. He had said it calmly and quietly with a blank face yet a slightly threatening undertone to his voice. It made several people's hair on the back of their necks stick on end. There was silence. Ben cleared his throat and stepped forward.

"Ok, there are four entrances. S unit you take the south, K the east and N the north and Alex, we'll take the west." Ben announced. He had brought up a blue print of the building.

"Awww, is little Foxy not joining his old unit then?" Eagle said sadly pretending to wipe away a tear. Ben actually looked like he wouldn't mind doing that.

"Ben, join K unit, that is the more heavily guarded entrance. I'll take the west. It shouldn't be too bad, at least, not with Smithers' stuff." Alex said.

Ben frowned, "Are you sure" he asked, "I don't want you to get hurt, you shouldn't even be on a mission yet you're still in-"

"It's fine Ben!" Alex snapped giving him a warning look. Ben knew to leave it at that.

"I join K unit then" he stated.

They talked through the plans. There should be around 60 people inside and 10 outside if they were correct. The job was to get in, take out as many guards as possible, take hostages, see what they could find, if it was anything of importance get a clearance team in, if not, blow it up. Simple.

Everyone got into position. Each person had an ear piece to communicate through.

"Everyone in position?" Ben whispered into his ear piece. There came mumbles of "yes sir" from everyone except one.

"Alex?" Ben groaned into his piece.

"The moment you asked that I was slightly busy." Alex said defensively knowing that Ben thought he was just trying to be annoying for the fun of it.

"Doing?" Ben questioned.

"Cameras are on loop and two guards are down" Alex said.

Everyone was silently impressed that the kid had done that but no one voiced it. They had too much pride and still felt insulted in having to take orders from him.

"Good, everyone, use the silencers to take out the guards then go in" Ben ordered. Everyone did so and all around the area you could hear soft thuds or slight groans but that was it. Each team advanced and started making their way in. It was a two story building with an underground floor. Each person went in the direction that had earlier been discussed... apart from Alex.

He had tried to get in through the door but it was heavily locked. He looked up and saw an open window. Underneath was a rather chubby dead guard. As much as the thought disturbed him Alex decided it was the only way, he was going to use the dead man as a boost.

Alex went back a little bit, ran forward and jumped on the man's protruding belly and was flung upwards. It was just high enough to reach to window sill. Alex grabbed the window sill and pulled himself up slightly. He could see two men in the room and one had a gun. Alex noticed a desk nearby. When neither man was looking Alex slipped into the room. When he was ready he stood up and shot both men right between the eyes. With the silencer on the only noise they made was the noise of them hitting the ground.

Alex then made his way to the door and peered out of its tiny window. He saw two guards walking away from the room and a third guarding the room. Alex quietly opened the door, used his elbow to jab the man guarding the door in the neck hard enough to actually break the wind pipe and the neck behind it and then used instinctive firing to shoot the two guards in the back of the head. They didn't even have a chance to turn around. Alex wandered down the corridors killing and occasionally knocking people out. He came to a dead end in one corridor. It had been guarded by four men each lying on the floor by Alex's feet with blood drizzling from their heads. On the door was a sign. It read:

_Freezer_

Alex opened the door. It was a heavy door and he had to use a lot of force. When he opened it there was a gust of cold wind blowing out. Alex would have shivered if he wasn't used to being in cold, dank cells every now and then. He walked in. The room really was a type of freezer. There were glass cylinder pods lining one wall. The first three Alex saw were empty, the next held a man who looked like he was in his late forties early fifties in a block of ice, next was another man who appeared to be around thirty also frozen solid. Alex recognised the next one from the papers. She had been a politician or something that had gone missing. Alex paid no attention to the names below, they meant nothing to him. Alex walked to the last two pods and froze. The men inside these pods looked slightly similar although one had lighter hair than the other and one was slightly shorter. Their name plates read:

_Ian Rider_

_John Rider_

Alex could hear a whisper in his ear. People were talking on the ear piece but Alex could only hear a whisper. He didn't understand anything at this minute not even English, all he could hear in his mind was 'Rider! Ian _Rider!_ John _Rider!_'

At the other end of the ear piece Ben was going frantic.

"Alex? Alex? Where are you? Why didn't you meet at the rendezvous point? Alex, can you hear me? Alex!" Ben was shouting.

K unit were looking at Ben with worry.

"I knew I should have gone with him! I knew it." he cried as he took his finger from his ear.

"Fox," Snake said, "we'll find him, he'll be fine."

At that moment everyone heard their ear pieces fuzz into life.

"Ben... no... Rider... I don't... understand... dead." came Alex's voice. It wasn't that the ear piece was not working properly, it was the fact that Alex didn't actually have the ability to form a sentence.

"Alex! Alex! What do you mean?" Ben called in to his ear piece.

"Split up and look for him!" he cried.

At the same point Alex's mind couldn't take the strain and he slid down the opposite wall and clutched his knees into his stomach as his mind tried to process it all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Enjoy**

**I don't own anything**

* * *

They had been searching for ten minutes and Ben was pulling his hair out. None of them had ever seen him so worried. Finally there was a voice through the ear piece.

"I found him." came the voice of Cheetah.

"Where?" asked Ben urgently.

"Second floor, literally on the floor… in a sort of foetal position. The room is marked freezer, it's hard to miss, there are four dead guards lining the corridor." Cheetah said. He then turned to Alex, "Kid, kid can you hear me?"

A mumbled voice came from the boy.

"Sorry, didn't catch that. What did you say?" Cheetah asked. He was trying to be patient.

Alex had his eyes fixed on the men opposite him. Cheetah waved a hand in front of the boys face. He go no sign of acknowledgement.

"They're dead." he repeated finally. Cheetah was confused and showing no sympathy with it.

Before he could reply Ben stormed in followed by Wolf and S unit

Ben dropped next to Alex.

"Alex? Are you alright?" Ben said trying to find an injury. Alex lifted a hand slowly and pointed to the ice block. Ben helped Alex up and turned to look at what Alex was staring at while supporting him.

"John _Rider."_ he mumbled and his eyes widened and he looked at Alex.

Alex nodded and then indicated for him to look at the other pod.

"Ian _Rider_. How is that possible?" Ben exclaimed.

"I don't know." Alex said blankly.

"Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on?" Wolf shouted.

Ben glared at him.

"My last name is Rider." Alex explained in a bitter voice. Everyone else looked at names.

Just then Eagle and Snake came in and saw everyone was silent. Eagle walked up to the pods everyone was looking at.

"Hey that one looks like Cub… only a little bigger." shouted Eagle. Ben glared at him.

"Sorry, but what the hell is going on here. Are these like some long lost relatives or something? Did your snot nosed parents tell you that they left or something?" Wolf sneered.

"That is my dad." Alex replied in a monotone voice.

Wolf dropped his sneer.

"But then what happened to my mum?" Alex asked quietly to no one in particular.

"Ben" he said, "is it possible to get them out?"

Ben thought for a few seconds.

"I'm not sure." he replied, "Dog, you're the techno whizz, see what you can do."

"Yes sir." Dog shouted and went over to a set of controls.

"We're going to have to call this in." Ben said. Alex ripped himself away from Ben.

"No!" he cried, "Ben, can't you see this is a chance for me to escape! This is a chance for me to run away, start a new life!"

"Alex, look I know-"

"No Ben, if they don't know that they exist than they won't expect a teenage boy and two adults. I can leave this world. There would be no more black-" Alex was cut off as Cheetah shouted at him.

"You will not answer back to your superiors!" Cheetah snapped. Alex turned and glared at him.

"I am his superior you idiot!" he retorted.

Before Cheetah could respond Dog spoke up.

"I know how to do it. Once it's done though they will need to go to hospital as soon as possible, no medic can give them what they need." Dog said. Ben and Alex stared at each other and then Alex did an incredibly rare thing. He faltered first.

"Fine." he muttered.

"Dog, free all of them." Ben ordered, "K unit, call N unit then all three units take these people to the vehicles. It's going to be a tight squeeze. I'll call a clearance team in to see what they can find out."

With that everyone set to work. Dog would turn off the power for one cylinder and then a few people would take them out of the pods and carry them the three mile walk back to the vehicles. Alex had headed back as they were doing this and waited in one of the jeeps. He was tired and confused and he didn't like either of those feelings.

Wolf came up to Ben as Eagle and Rabbit from N unit carried off the woman in the third pod.

"So what was all that about?" Wolf asked.

Ben sighed. He knew he would have to explain it at some point.

"Alex's parents died when he was a baby, his uncle died a couple of days before we first met him. His guardian died just under a year ago. He has no one left. He is MI6's best agent because he has nothing and no one. He is basically emotionless and any emotion shown is now the cover instead of the other way round I think. You saw all those dead people out there right?" Wolf nodded, "Alex killed them. With nothing left he feels no remorse on killing them. Alex is always one step ahead and can figure out basically everything. If he can't he hates it and gets annoyed. My guess is, now we have found out that his uncle and father are alive, he's going to have something or someone to care about him. He's going to have to feel emotions again and get attached to people and he's actually scared of that. I also think that his mind can't comprehend this. He works like a machine. This isn't in his programming. You will probably never see that much emotion from Alex again."

Wolf nodded considering what he had heard.

"Surely," he said, "he has someone that looks after him, he can't be old enough to live by himself can he?"

"I try and look after him as much as he lets me but MI6 let him live alone, that way they have something to use against him to do missions." Ben stated sadly.

"What did he mean by he could run away?" Wolf asked curiously.

"Alex hates this life but he had nothing to run to so felt no reason to run away, he knew he would be caught and just tossed into another mission. Now he could start a new life, things could get better" Ben guessed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Enjoy :)**

**I don't own anything.**

* * *

By the time they had loaded everyone into the army cars Alex was asleep. Ben felt guilty for waking him up this morning if this was how tired he was. It was a long journey back to London and most of it was done in silence in all three vehicles. Wolf was sitting driving one of the vehicles thinking that the two men related to Cub looked vaguely familiar. He put it to them being related and just thought that it must have been a similarity between all of them. Little did he know that almost everyone from the other units were thinking the same thing.

They woke Alex when they had arrived at St Dominic's Hospital. Jones had sent them directly there when Ben had phoned up. The SAS were put in a large room where they were tended to; no one had obtained any serious injuries. All those who had been cryogenically frozen were was put in separate rooms apart from Ian and John. A nurse had asked to look at Alex because he was covered in blood. Alex had shooed her away explaining that it wasn't his blood.

Alex sat and watched his father and his uncle sleep. He had no idea what he was going to say to either of them when they woke up. Alex didn't know his father and Ian had left him in the hands of 'the bank'. He guessed he couldn't blame either of them but really wished he could, if they hadn't been caught maybe none of this would have ever happened.

Alex fell asleep with thoughts whizzing around his head. It had been around four in the morning when his heavy eyelids finally won the battle and closed sending him to sleep. Ben had gone to check on Alex at around midnight but had seen the boy watching the two adults with his concentrating face on and so did not disturb him.

Ian Rider woke up at around 7 am. He knew he felt cold yet he was on something comfortable. His muscles groaned at him as he sat himself up and what he saw shocked him. From the small amount of light creeping in from the corridor and a crack in the curtains he could see, sitting in the bed opposite him, was John Rider. He was sitting up and looking at the corner of the room just a little left of the window. Ian saw Alex fast asleep with his head lolled forward.

"John?" Ian whispered. He whispered because he didn't want to wake his nephew but also because he couldn't believe what he was seeing. If he thought his muscles could take the weight he would have gotten up and hugged his brother.

John turned to look at Ian.

"Is that – is that Alex?" John asked. His voice was as deep and smooth as ever.

Ian nodded.

"How old is he?" John asked looking over at the boy.

"He was 14 when I last saw him but he looks older now. I remember being tortured and then being told I would be frozen and then I'm here." Ian explained, "I don't know how long I've been gone."

John nodded in understanding.

"They woke me from my frozen state several times to ask questions. It was like blinking an eye. One second I was put in the pod and the next apparently it was months if not years later." John said replied still not looking away from his son until he asked, "How much does Alex know?"

"He knew nothing when I left, I don't know what 'the bank' told him or anything." Ian responded and looked back at his nephew.

Alex was sat in a dark corner yet Ian could still just make out his face. It looked slightly contorted as if in pain or something but then again it could have just been the light. They both heard Alex shift slightly in his seat and mumble something too quiet for them to hear.

Just then voices could be heard from outside.

"... will not wake any of them!" came a male voice. It sounded as if the man was from Liverpool.

"We need to know what they know." came the distinct voice of Mrs Jones. Both men recognised it.

"Alex deserves some sleep!" shouted the man. Both men inside the room looked at each other quizzically. What could Mrs Jones want with Alex?

"Look, Mrs Jones, I'll keep an eye on Alex. I know that's what you're worried about, you think he'll probably do something stupid. It's Alex, of course he will," the male voice said confusing the elder Riders even more, "I'll inform you if any of them wake up. For now just let them sleep."

"Fine Agent Daniels but I want to be notified the moment any Rider wakes up." said Mrs Jones and they heard her footsteps as she walked along the corridor. The man outside, agent Daniels, sighed loudly. Alex shifted in his sleep and mumbled something else but the men were concentrating on Agent Daniels.

Ben, or agent Daniels, walked in mumbling insults under his breath. He hated having to look after Alex for MI6. If it was just looking after Alex it would be fine but looking after him for the devils was not what he wanted. Ben made sure he quietly shut the door hoping that he wouldn't wake any of the inhabitants; he was still unaware that two were already awake. He turned from the door and noticed the two of them looking at him and almost jumped in shock.

"Who are you?" asked John.

"Agent Benjamin Daniels." Ben replied knowing to cut to the chase.

"What the hell does Mrs Jones want with Alex?" Ian asked in a serious voice.

Ben wasn't sure how to answer this. Both men looked calm yet intimidating just like Alex did.

"Um..." he said rubbing the back of his neck.

"We're waiting." John said calmly.

"I'm guessing classified doesn't work on either of you?" Ben mumbled.

"How can Alex be classified?" John asked quietly. He was getting very confused and he didn't like it.

"What is the date?" Ian asked softly.

"It's the 24th of August 2012" Ben replied quietly

"2012?" John asked. "That means I've been out for... just under 16 years"

"August?" Ian mumbled to himself. John suddenly realised.

"Alex was 16 six days ago!" he cried just quietly enough not to disturb the sleeping boy.

"We will repeat the question," Ian stated, "What does Mrs Jones know about Alex?"

"Well..." Ben started.

"Jack..." Alex mumbled just loudly enough for everyone to hear. He shifted some more. "No... sorry... please"

Alex had started shifting more frequently. Both Rider's just glanced at him. John didn't even know who Jack was.

Ben, on the other hand, rushed over to Alex and started shaking him softly.

"Alex, Alex wake up, wake up, it's not real" Ben said. The older Riders just watched.

Alex started squirming his voice getting louder and more pleading.

"Jack NO... I'm sorry!" he mumbled loudly.

John Rider watch this happening and realised that Ben had his thumb and middle finger wrapped around one of Alex's wrist.

"Alex, none of what you are seeing is real, Alex wake up!" Ben pleaded shaking Alex more violently.

"Julius..." Alex said, "...Wrothman... Mayjor... Sayle..."

John heard him mutter Wrothman. He couldn't be talking about Julia Wrothman could he?

Ian heard Sayle... it couldn't possibly be Herod Sayle, could it?

"No..." Alex started thrashing about, "don't..."

"ALEX!" Ben shouted as he now violently shook Alex and Alex lurched forward and punched Ben in the shoulder. Had his mind been more focused he would have hit the face but it wasn't. Alex breathed heavily and started panting into his hands while Ben lay sprawled on the ground a few feet away clutching his shoulder.

Ian and John just sat on their beds in shocked.

"God Alex, I thought you were beginning to trust me." Ben joked through gritted teeth in the pain.

Alex looked over at the voice and saw Ben rubbing his shoulder.

"Crap," he muttered, "did I hit you in the bullet wound again?"

"It's fine, it's an old wound." Ben said.

"You and I both know that that is a lie. That wound may be a year old but by the amount of times you've hurt it, it would still hurt like you got it last month." Alex said as his breathing started to calm down.

"You alright?" Ben asked seriously now.

"I was shouting again, wasn't I?" Alex said and let out a sigh.

"'Fraid so" Ben muttered, "Julius still causing you some _Grief?"_

"Ben that is the worst pun I think you've ever said" Alex said with a dry laugh rubbing his face and trying to rub away the dream with it.

"I'm sorry." Ben mumbled seriously.

Alex stopped rubbing his face and was fully awake and alert and looked at Ben. His face was blank and emotionless.

"You didn't kill Jack did you? You couldn't have prevented it. You couldn't have stopped me killing Julius or any of the others." Alex said blankly.

Both of the older Riders listened in horror to what the _16 year old _boy said. Ian heard Jack getting killed. When had that happened? John just heard that his son had killed.

"Alex. I say sorry because I could have argued more with Jones to allow you to have a partner rather than go into those situations alone." Ben said.

Alex sighed and for the first time that morning he looked up and saw the two men looking at him. None of them knew what to say. They had never really been in this situation before and from what the older Riders had just heard they knew nothing about Alex.

There was an awkward silence broken only when Alex spoke making it even more awkward than before.

"Hi" he said.


	5. Chapter 5

******Enjoy :)**

**I don't own anything**

* * *

"_Hi" he said._

"Way to break the awkwardness." Ben muttered just loudly enough for Alex to hear. Alex's lip twitched up slightly. If the only people in the room had not been spies then this would have gone unnoticed but that wasn't the case. No one commented though.

"I guess introductions first." Alex muttered. He leaned forwards and supported his upper body by resting his arms on his legs. The others could see his face a bit better now.

Ian and John stayed impassive.

"Right well Ben, this is my uncle Ian and if I am not mistaken you are my dad right?" Alex said gesturing to the people as he talked.

"Yes" John said. Alex had never heard his dad's voice before but it was strong and smooth. He almost instantly felt safe around this man.

"Well then, Ian, Dad," he tasted the word in his mouth, "this is Ben Daniels."

"Hey." Ben said with a small smirk. He knew that even though Alex had an impassive face just like his uncle and dad that he felt so awkward doing this.

"Alex," said Ian, "how much did 'the bank' tell you after I, um, left? What did they tell you?"

Alex's eyes went hard and emotionless. Ian looked at the boy's face and knew that he had seen too much in life. Nobody should look as emotionless as that especially not a 16 year old.

"_They_ told me you died in a car accident. You had forgotten to put on your seatbelt." Alex said with a dry laugh.

"Honestly? That was the best they could come up with?" Ian said with a smirk.

"I went, found the car, saw bullet holes and knew I had been lied to." Alex stated simply.

"How much do you know about my job Alex?" Ian asked more seriously.

"You're an MI6 spy, or you were before you _died_. Your business trips were missions and your last mission involved Herod Sayle. I was told, and I think MI6 believed, that you were killed by Yassen Gregorovitch on your way home. The Royal and General was where you worked but it was just a cover up for the truth." Alex explained in a monotone voice. Ian seemed shocked. This boy knew quite a bit.

Alex then turned to John.

"You were a spy, you worked in the parachute regiment first though. One of your missions was to infiltrate SCORPIA. You worked on Malagusto after completing your own training there as well as doing several missions for them. On one of them you saved Yassen's life and he owed you a debt. That debt has been paid more than once. You wanted out so did a set up in Malta where you wanted to get caught although it didn't go to plan, Ash ended up with a knife wound to the stomach from Yassen. You almost blew your cover. Scorpia did an exchange when they thought you had been caught for a boy of a politician. You faked your death on the bridge and then planned to go to France. On the day you were planning to go I had an ear infection and as far as I was aware you and mum were blown up once you took off. Ash was the one who blew up your plane. Where is mum by the way?"Alex asked. John sat shocked. How did this boy know all of this? What did he mean about Ash? How was he on first names with Yassen?

"Alex. I think you're going to fast again." Ben explained looking at the confused faces in front of him.

Alex sighed. He hated questions.

"What do you want me to elaborate on?"he asked tiredly. This was going to be a long morning.

"What the hell Alex?!" Ian cried, "What could have possibly happened to you in two years? You've changed so much. How do you know so much?"

"Experience." Alex said bluntly.

"What's that suppose to mean?" Ian shouted.

John could see Ian was getting angry and knew Alex didn't want to answer that question just yet so stepped in.

"Alex," John said regaining his calm, "how much do you know about SCORPIA? How much do you know about Yassen Gregorovitch?"

"SCORPIA: Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence, Assassination. There motto, SCORPIA never forgives, SCORPIA never forgets. If I'm not mistaken all of the board members are dead. Julia Rothman used to be in charge but I don't think anyone can survive a hot air balloon satellite thing landing on their heads." Alex said dismissively, "As for Yassen. He was a guns for hire but worked mainly for SCORPIA. He saved my life a couple of times. He died."

John was actually saddened by Alex's last word. He had gotten used to Yassen.

"How did he die?" he asked.

"Shot in the chest by a madman when he wouldn't kill me or Sabina, my friend." Alex said.

John nodded. He wished he could thank Yassen for saving his boy.

"Alex," Ian said, he had regained his cool, "what happened to Jack? You said that she was killed."

"I meant just that." Alex said coldly. Ben knew this was a touchy subject for Alex and didn't want him to get angry. He put a comforting hand on Alex's shoulder. Alex almost flipped Ben over his shoulder, it was instinct but then just before he did he realised it was Ben.

The older Rider's saw this sign of affection even in the dark room.

"When?" Ian asked.

"11 months ago" Alex explained.

"How?" Ian asked.

"Julius blew her up" Alex said almost spitting the words.

"What do you mean?" Ian asked not sensing just how angry Alex was getting. He didn't know that Alex had watched it happen.

Ben felt Alex tense.

"Alex," he said softly, "calm down."

Alex looked away from everyone trying to hide the anger on his face.

"Do you want me to explain?" Ben asked. Ian and John didn't understand what this man had to do with their relative but if Alex trusted him they would try.

"Sure." Alex mumbled gesturing for him to talk.

Ben looked at the two men in their beds.

"I'll try and explain it as simply as possible." Ben explained and then tried contemplating how he would say it. He had read the file but gotten little information out of Alex himself. That was more than anyone else though.

"On Alex's second mission," Ben continued and raised a hand to stop any interruptions about why he was on a mission, "Alex was undercover at a school in the French Alps. He was cloned. The clone's name was Julius Grief. Alex didn't get replaced and the clones of everyone were caught. About a year later Julius went missing and Alex went on a mission to Cairo. Jack, his guardian at the time, wanted to go with him and MI6 accepted. They were caught by a madman and Alex was forced to watch as Jack tried to escape. They had planned everything so she would and then Julius Grief blew her up at the last hurdle"

"I should have told her not to try!" Alex cried out, "I should have known that they would be listening in to our conversation but I was too stupid."

"Alex," Ben said sharply, "stupid doesn't save the world or go on suicide missions and come back let alone with only a scratch."

"I'm – I'm sorry to hear she's gone. I liked her." Ian said softly.

"Yeah," spat Alex, "so did I! After you disappeared she was the only thing I had left close to family. After MI6 came in she was the only one who knew everything. She knew all my injuries. Even after all the hell she was put through for me she didn't leave! Why the hell did you have to?"

Alex had shouted the last part.

"Alex, go wash up. You said you wouldn't leave their bedsides till they woke and they are awake. Come back when you've washed your face and stuff. There is a bag of fresh clothes just outside the door"

Alex stood up and silently walked to the door. The movement of a good spy, being absolutely silent. As Alex moved closer to the brighter area of the room the two Riders saw the dirt and blood on his clothes. The door shut behind him and the tension in the room dwindled down.

"I guess you still have some questions ?" Ben asked as he sat where Alex was sitting.


	6. Chapter 6

**Enjoy :)**

**Don't own anything.**

* * *

Ben sat waiting for the bombardment of questions unsure of how he would answer. John spoke first.

"How do you know Alex?" he asked.

"Well, on most missions we're partners and since Jack died I've been trying to look after him." Ben explained. He left out Brecon Beacons not wanting any questions to lead to how nasty he was to the boy back then.

John nodded accepting this explanation.

"Why the hell was my nephew covered in blood?" Ian asked.

"It's not his blood," Ben reassured quickly, "last mission, last night to be precise, we went to raid the last of SCORPIA's functioning connection. That's where we found you two."

"Why is he covered in blood though, surely he would have been kept away from the death." Ian said hopefully. He was outraged but being a spy he calmed down and on his face he showed no emotion.

"Well, we split up and Alex went off and there were quite a few guards." Ben explained. He decided not to add in all the details again. He was pretty sure that these men would be able to take him down if he upset them even if their muscles were weak.

Ian would ask more about this later but for now he let it drop.

"Who is this Jack who died? How well did Alex know him?" John asked.

Ian answered.

"Jack was a girl," Ian said simply, "she was a pretty girl, American. I hired her when Alex was 7. He was capable of living on his own but I couldn't stand the risk of someone finding him alone and I thought he would want company. So I hired Jack, she cooked and looked after Alex and I paid her back in kind by letting her stay with us while she study. After she finished university she stayed on though. After I left I assumed she would have gone back to America but I'm guessing I'm wrong."

Ben nodded.

"Jack stayed. She looked after Alex." Ben said. He didn't go into detail or elaborate deciding that would be best to let Alex explain when he was ready.

"How did Alex join 'the Bank'?" Ian asked.

Or maybe not.

Ben wondered if he should let Alex say it but he was worried that Alex would be so blunt in saying it or get angry or something.

"Um..." he decided to tell them, "Jack's visa was running out, you were gone," he gestured to Ian, "and had left Alex to 'the Bank' and they threatened Jack's visa and a crappy boarding school if Alex didn't comply,"

"They blackmailed him?" John cried out.

"Yeah." Ben replied quietly.

"Where did he go on his first mission?" Ian asked getting curious.

"He went to finish your job with Herod Sayle" Ben explained.

"WHAT!" Ian cried out outraged, "If that mission supposedly killed me what were they thinking sending in Alex?"

"I have no idea." Ben muttered.

"How many missions has Alex been on?" John questioned.

Ben looked away thinking for a second.

"I think it's more or less 20 but I'd say a few more than that" Ben muttered nervously.

"What!" the men cried out in unison.

"I thought Alex was only 16!" Ian cried out, "If he's been doing this for two years that's ridiculous!"

"What about school and friends?" John shouted.

"Alex doesn't go to school," Ben said nervously, "and I think I'm his only friend."

John and Ian sat like fishes with their mouths hanging loose.

Before more questions could be asked there was shouting and loud voices outside. The door swung open and a man flew in and fell to the floor. The man pulled a knife out of his belt and flung it out of the door. Alex walked in and threw the same knife back at the man only this landed in the man's throat killing him instantly. The older Riders had wanted to jump into action as soon as the man came flying in the room but because their muscles were not used to moving yet after so long of being frozen they couldn't. Instead they watched as Alex killed a man with a plain face.

"Alex," Ben cried out, "let me see your hand!"

Alex looked down at his hand and realised it was covered in blood. He had caught the knife at the blade end instead of the handle.

He shrugged.

"It's fine" he said. Ben examined it.

"It is not fine. That is a deep cut. Let's get a nurse to have a look at it." Ben cried about to drag Alex out the room. Alex pulled back.

"I've had worse." Alex said.

"Yeah," said a man in army gear, SAS gear to be more precise, walking in dragging another dead body in, "Like snowboarding down a mountain on an ironing board with machine guns firing at you and flying into a train."

"That wasn't that bad," Alex explained like they were all idiots, "I was wearing a bullet proof ski jacket. And you came out of that mission worse for wear than I did Wolf."

"WHAT THE HELL!" Ian cried.


	7. Chapter 7

**Enjoy :)**

**I don't own anything**

* * *

Everyone stared at Ian after his outburst.

"What the hell what?" Alex asked casually.

"What the hell happened to you?" Ian started, "I wake up in hospital with you having horrific nightmares and MI6 wanting a word with you and you being close buds with an agent knowing most details of mine and your father's work as well as being an expert on SCORPIA. You're life has been saved by the world's most deadly assassin, apparently more then once. You've been on God knows how many missions. You have a clone who killed Jack. You were covered in blood when you left and apparently it's not even your blood! You were blackmailed by 'the bank', you went up against Herod Sayle. You don't go to school or have any friends and you just killed a man without a second thought, cut your hand badly and then claimed being shot at was nothing. WHAT THE HELL?"

Alex looked at his uncle with a plain face and then glared at Ben. Everyone was staring at Alex. It was unusual for spies to get so angry or annoyed or show this much emotion in general but this was family and this part of the family was broken.

"Are you finished with your rant?" Alex asked plainly. Ian didn't respond. Alex glared at Ben again.

"I'm guessing you filled them in a bit?" He asked bitterly. Ben raised his arms in defence.

"Hey, they're your family and I thought they had a right to know." Ben said defensively.

"He's right Alex, we want to know what happened to you, we want to help you." John said cautiously.

"I don't need help, there is nothing wrong with me," Alex said casually, "and Ian, you answered your own question. MI6 happened."

Just then a phone went off. Ben pulled his out of his pocket and walked out of the room.

Wolf was almost positive he recognised at least one of the men in the beds.

By now all of K unit were standing in the bedroom having similar thoughts, all but Cheetah.

"Sorry to be rude sirs but I was wondering where I recognised you?" Wolf asked.

"Name and position in group." John commanded.

"Wolf, sir, leader" Wolf answered.

"Snake, medic" Snake said standing to attention.

"Eagle, weapons expert" Eagle stated following Snake's lead.

"Cheetah, languages" Cheetah responded.

"Judging by your uniform your SAS." John deducted and then remembered something, "I know where I know you from. My final favour to Mr Blunt was to see a few of the new recruits. I saw Wolf and Eagle."

Wolf and Eagle nodded and accepted this explanation.

"I think I worked with your unit a few years back, maybe a year or less before I got frozen." Ian said thoughtfully.

Eagle, Wolf and Snake all nodded remembering this expedition.

"Although," Ian continued, "I don't remember a Cheetah, I remember a Fox."

"I'm new to the unit," Cheetah replied, "I'm replacing Fox."

"What happened to him?" Ian asked curiously.

"He joined 'the Bank' and just answered a phone call." Alex said with a shrug.

"Wait, that was Fox?" Ian asked.

"Yeah. Now, if that is over, I have a question for you, _Dad._" Alex said.

"Go ahead." John said. He was curious to what Alex wanted to know.

"What happened to my mother?" he asked.

John sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. He should have guessed this question would be asked.

"Well," he started, "she did die on the plane that day. Blunt called me off the plane and told me that something urgent needed to be check and so I was to join her the following day or two. I got off the plane and it exploded just after it took off. Next thing I know there was lots of noise and cars coming to take out the flames and then one car stopped near me and something sharp hit me on the head and I woke up somewhere else."

Alex nodded. He didn't know how to respond to this. His mother was dead, surely he should be sad but then again, she's been dead his whole life so surely nothing much had changed. He just had his dad and uncle back from the grave.

"I have a question for you." John said bringing Alex out of his thoughts, "What did you mean when you said Ash betrayed us earlier? You said he was the one who blew up the plane?"

"Ash got upset after his stomach got cut open and was assigned desk duty, you knew that already though, right?" Alex asked and John nodded, "Well, he didn't like that and so went to SCORPIA and wanted in. His initiation test was to kill you so he blew up the plane." Alex stated simply.

"How do you know this?" Ian asked when his brother could not.

"He told me. My sixth mission I think. I was working with ASIS and was partnered with him. It turns out he was working with Snakehead the whole mission. He shot Ben in that mission and I don't think he personally wanted to pull the trigger on me." Alex said with unsettling calmness.

"So you were the agent Fox was protecting on that mission?" Snake asked. Alex nodded.

"So Ash, your god father, betrayed our family twice?" John asked.

"Yeah, sounds like it." Alex said with a shrug as though this was an everyday thing.

Ben walked back in the room looking grumpy.

"You three have an appointment at 'the bank'" Ben almost spat, "I've signed you out"

"Thank you." John said.

"But Alex, before you go, if you don't get that damn hand checked out then I will personally chain you to a bed and get a nurse in and will have it arranged so that you have to spend an achingly long time in hospital." Ben stated with a smirk.

Alex grumpily made his way out of the room muttering something that sounded distinctly like "I hate you" and went to find a nurse.

Ben's smirk grew into a grin. He turned to the older Riders.

"So which one of you is responsible for Alex's hate for hospitals?" he asked. Both men grinned.

"I think that would be both of us." Ian said with a small laugh. "He's hated them since he was a kid. Probably got it from how... eager I was when he had appointments if I didn't send Jack."

"I would have thought that my hate for hospitals would not have been passed onto him because his mother was a nurse but then again I guess he got my hate gene as well as my looks." John said.

"And we all know how proud of your looks you are." Ian teased.

"Well even if they are slightly below the looks of an angel they are much better than your looks." John said with mocking honesty.

Ian threw his pillow and it smacked John in the head. All the while Ben ushered K unit out to let the men get ready. He also left them a bag of clean clothes each to get changed into.


	8. Chapter 8

**Enjoy :)**

**Don't own anything.**

* * *

20 minutes later all of the Riders' were ready. There was a car waiting to take them and Ben to 'the bank' so they made their way down to the car park. John and Ian chatted a little and caught up. Alex stayed quiet and Ben just watched. He couldn't help but wonder what was going through Alex's head at the minute.

Alex's head was messed up. One minute he could be thinking about how it is his fault many people had died, next second he could be thinking about different methods of killing and after that his mind might go blank but every second he would be observing his surroundings. Right now Ben had no idea what mood Alex was in or what he was thinking. It wasn't often he could tell what Alex was thinking but this was something new. This was a scenario not even the great Alex Rider could have thought up. This could lead to a new trail of thinking.

"Ben," Alex said quietly staring straight in front of him as he kept walking, "why are you trying to figure out what's going on in my head?"

It was said just quietly enough for Ben to hear although everyone heard the next thing said.

"How do you do that?" Ben cried out bringing the attention of the older Riders to him, "you seriously need to teach me that!"

"Now where would be the fun in that." Alex said with a small smirk.

"Is everything alright?" Ian asked wondering what the outburst was about.

"Yeah, it's all good." Ben mumbled grumpily.

"Ben's just upset that he'll never be good at his job." Alex said.

"Hey!" Ben cried out, "I am good at my job!"

"Yet a 16 year old is better than you." Alex said with a grin.

"At least I'm slightly human with no unnatural senses which enable me to read peoples' minds." Ben grumbled.

"Yet you want to be able to do it. Plus I can't read your mind, I can read your face. You look a certain way when you think and you look a certain way and glance my way when you're thinking about me." Alex said.

"You're a puzzle, all I want is to figure out what happens in your head. It might help someone understand you at least a little." Ben said.

"You don't need to know what goes on in my head." Alex said turning serious.

Ben sighed but gave up. He wouldn't get anymore from Alex and he knew it. The rest of the walk was done in silence.

John recognised the driver and so did Ian. They walked forward and greeted each other. There was no emotional reunion or even much emotion. These men were spies. They questioned the driver on what had happened since their disappearances and the driver asked questions about what happened to them. All simple bland answers which actually gave little information away. John and Ian and the driver talked quietly. The Riders' were trying to get some information on Alex and most of the drivers answers were either classified or he didn't know.

Ben had climbed into the car to wait but Alex sensed something was wrong just slightly. He didn't know what it was but something seemed out of place. He walked a few steps from everyone else and watched his surroundings looking for what might make his instincts sense danger.

He glanced at one of the grey concrete pillars holding up the underground car park. To the naked eye there was nothing but to Alex there was a small shadow near the bottom of an enlargement that wasn't there and the shape seemed slightly distorted. He looked closer and then the wall had eyes. A man, painted grey to fit in with the concrete surroundings jumped out and attacked. He drove Alex into a nearby car but Alex spun around out of his grasp and attached the man.

John, Ian and the driver all noticed the fight happening and, after many years of practise, did not hesitate to try and figure out what was going on. Attack first, ask questions later. Ben saw them run off and climbed out of the car after them.

When they reached Alex and the attacker Alex had the man pinned to the side of a car so he couldn't move. Alex had a creepily calm expression on.

"Who are you?" he asked quietly.

"Don't remember me Rider?" the man said then he started wiping his face against his grey covered shirt with much difficulty to remove the paint.

There in front of them was Oliver d'Ark, the headmaster of Malagosto.

John looked shocked at seeing the man here.

"Why are you here?" Alex said without changing his voice or facial expression.

"You need to pay Rider," the man spat "you destroyed SCORPIA, you destroyed Snakehead, where ever I went you destroyed it. I lost ranks after you did your missions, each time getting degraded further and further until I ended up as a simple guard with Snakehead."

Alex yawned, "Sorry," he said, "I haven't slept much recently so could you speed this up a bit"

Oliver sneered.

"I was there when your partner got shot. He killed your godfather wasn't it? What was it like watching the last connection to your family die in front of you? What was it like knowing they betrayed you?"

Alex's grip on Oliver tightened.

And then Alex lessened his hold.

"You know what I think?" Alex asked, his voice so calm and quiet it made hairs stand on end, "I don't think you should have trained me so thoroughly in the art of killing."

With that Alex released Oliver for a mere second before using his fingers to stab the pressure points. This was not quick and painless death. This paralysed your body so you couldn't defend yourself, you just felt yourself go limp and painful until your killer had the decency to stab the pressure point by your heart slowly stopping it from beating or left you as your heart failed on its own.

Alex stared at the man blankly as he watched the colour fade from his skin and his breaths become desperate until, finally, they stopped and the man lay on the floor dead.

"Come on then." he sighed making his way back over to the car, "Let's get this over with"

With that Alex got in the car and waited for the others to follow.


	9. Chapter 9

**Enjoy**

* * *

The journey to 'the bank' was done in silence. Ian and John were both thinking the same thing. How could this 16 year old boy be such a ruthless killer? Ian had watched Alex grow up his whole life... or at least some of it. He had heard Alex say his first words, watch as he learnt to ride a bike, seen him do his first karate tournament and gain his first belt and more. He had seen how Alex cared for his friends and fended off the bullies. He had watched as Alex tried his childish antics on trying to make Jack jump. He remembered the Christmas where he came home at 3 in the morning and Alex was 6. The small boy was fast asleep on the sofa waiting for him. He must have dozed off next to Alex because he woke up in the morning being enveloped in a hug by his nephew. He had been to at least a half a dozen parents evenings and remembered being told how bright and popular Alex was. Yet, now, looking at the boy, his face was expressionless, he was civil but nothing more to anyone but Ben. From what he gathered Alex had but one friend (Ben) and was no longer in school.

He still wasn't 100% sure what had caused all this but he was almost positive that the person in charge of this change began with Alan and ended in Blunt.

John sat wondering how his son had turned out like this. He never knew Alex so he wasn't sure if this was how he grew up or how he changed to be. According to Ian's reactions and facial expressions this was unnatural for the boy.

When they finally pulled into Liverpool Street Alex had nodded off. Ben turned from the front seat to see the boy with his head tilted slightly forward.

"Alex," he said softly, "we're here."

Alex moved slightly and clicked his neck and then looked at Ben. He was now wide awake and alert in those few seconds.

"Bloody hell Alex," Ben said with a small chuckle, "you must be tired."

"If I recall, it's your fault." Alex said with a plain expression and a shrug.

"How exactly?" responded Ben.

"You woke me up yesterday, my first proper sleep in weeks." Alex said stretching his arms a little as though lack of sleep was just a small annoyance. When Ian was around a tired Alex would mean a grumpy Alex.

Ben faced forward feeling a little guilty.

"Let's get this over with." Alex sighed and then climbed out of the car shortly followed by all but the driver.

Alex led the way into the bank where they found the receptionist waiting for him.

"Mrs Jones is waiting for you in her office" the lady said then pushed a button which called a lift.

Alex nodded politely and walked into the lift. The elder men followed his gesture and got into the lift.

They reached the office with no difficulty and walked straight in. Jones knew they were coming, it would have been pointless to knock.

The older Riders scanned the area as they walked towards the office. No matter how long anyone said they had been gone nothing had changed.

"Alex." Jones greeted.

"Jones." he replied bitterly.

"Riders, Daniels." Jones greeted.

"Mrs Jones." they replied with a little less scowling in their voices.

"It's good to have you back John, Ian." Jones said. It actually sounded like a genuine comment.

"Good to be back." John said with a small smile.

"If I may ask, where's Blunt?" Ian asked.

"He retired." Jones answered.

"Unenthusiastically" Alex said quietly.

John and Ian were shock at the lack of formality Alex was using to speak to this woman, especially if she was now so high up in the ranks. Only people who had worked with her for a long time could loosen their formalities, that didn't mean they could butt in when she was talking. Jones's face didn't change. Instead she popped a peppermint in her mouth.

"Yes, well, truthful as that may be I am now head of the department." Jones confirmed for the benefit of Ian and John.

"And head of my security." Alex spat, "How the hell did three SCORPIA agents get close enough to attack?"

Ian and John were once again taken back by Alex's attitude. Once again Jones did nothing to show that this was abnormal.

"We had a threat from an anonymous sender. We suspected that they were from SCORPIA claiming that they would go after the destroyer of their company if the warehouse was attacked. We assumed they meant you Alex. I wanted to see how powerful they were. You had three SAS teams next door and a fully qualified agent. We had the hospital under surveillance to watch for large groups entering or an unusual amount of visitors and such entering. We saw no anomaly and so were unaware that the threat had gotten to you and guessed if it were such a small threat then you could contain it. Seeing by the lack of injury you did just that." Jones explained calmly.

"Lack of injury?" Ian cried out, "He has a knife wound on his hand!"

"You used him as bait to examine the enemy power?" John almost shouted.

"You two sound outraged," Alex said with a humourless laugh, "this lack of interest for employee safety or at least my safety is normal. The fact that there was back up is an improvement."

Ian and John stared at Alex in horror at how he could just brush aside these dangers and threats. Yes, they had had similar problems but this was a teenager and it seemed that MI6 didn't care about him. If they received a threat then their family was taken to safety with them if possible until they believed the threat had subsided. Then again, Alex didn't exactly have family until now.

Ben let out a small smirk at the open gaped expressions the men were staring at Alex with.

"That being said Alex's wound is not life threatening-" she started.

"And even if it was you wouldn't care." Alex cut in.

"And the enemy is basically no more." Jones said ignoring the comment, "Well done Rider, you have officially destroyed SCORPIA and all of its connections."

Ian and John continued to stare.

Ben wanted to cut in but he did not have the same rudeness privileges that Alex had. If he was as rude then he could be fired and he needed to keep his job to look after Alex.

"I should give Ben some credit though..." Alex said thoughtfully seeing Ben's face, "nah, it might annoy him if I don't"

Ben huffed but kept quiet.

"Jones, if you don't mind me asking," John said politely, "I was wondering if you might tell me and Ian how Alex ended up working for you at such a young age?"

"Agent Daniels, would you mind taking Alex to go and get some breakfast, Ian and John will follow in a moment. Also, Alex, could you stop off at Smithers, he wants to upgrade the phone he gave you."

Alex and Ben left with Alex mumbling something about being kept in the damn dark again.

Once the door was shut any emotion on the three faces of the people in the room faded.

"How did Alex end up working for you?" John said with a little more of a scowl in his voice.

"Ian had been training him," Jones said simply, "we saw that and used it to our advantage"

"Would you like to expand on that?" John said glaring at his brother.

"By the time Alex was 14 he knew several martial arts, was black belt in karate, spoke fluently in several different languages, could scuba dive, white water craft, ski and more. It was obvious that Ian wanted Alex to follow in both of your footsteps and we did it to protect the country. He has saved the world more times than one can count on one hand." Jones explained.

"I was not training him!" Ian said venomously to Jones, "I was protecting him. With this line of work I wanted him to be able to defend himself and run away. I also thought that if ever he found out what I did and I did consider telling him when he turned 18, as you can see it didn't go as plan, anyway, I was considering telling him. If he chose to join this career then I wanted him to stay alive and not survive on beginners luck."

"Well he has proved very useful and has survived on skill and the devil's luck just like you two did-" Jones started explaining.

"And our luck ran out!" John said raising his voice. His paternal instincts taking over. This was his son they were talking about.

"As we can see your luck still exists" Jones said.

"How is Alex so cold? So emotionless? And what the hell was all this about Alex being blackmailed?" Ian said raising his voice. It wasn't often that spies lost their cool like this. It was barely ever that Ian and John had ever actually lost their cool but this was outrageous.

"Alex has been through a lot. Over time he has learnt to hide his emotion" Jones explained, "as for the blackmailing, may I ask who told you that?"

"Ben Daniels," John answered, "and why are they so close?"

"I will have to have a word with Daniels." Jones said pursing her lips slightly, "As for their relationship, they met in Brecon Beacons in the SAS training camp, later on Ben's first mission with us he saw Alex while he was working for the ASIS. Ben rescued Alex from an island where they wanted to dissect him to sell his parts on the black market. He also shot Ash on that mission and took a bullet to the shoulder. I think Alex felt responsible for him being shot and grateful for him killing Ash although he doesn't communicate much about his missions. Later we assigned them as partners and I feel Ben has taken it upon himself to protect Alex. Ben is the only person Alex confines in and even then I believe he tells him barely anything. You could explain their relationship as brotherly. Ben saw that they boy had no family and took it upon himself to give the boy some I think. Both have taken at least one bullet for the other."

John was thankful to Ben but they definitely needed to talk.

"If you have any other questions here is Alex's folder containing his missions. He did not write them because he is not old enough to be legally employed so it is all we have gathered from what he told us, what anyone else on either side has told us and what we can gather from footage or gadgets which Smithers has created which can hold files or something which can inform us on some of Alex's doings. For many of his more recent missions he has been with Agent Daniels which has helped us document many of his actions." Jones said and handed out two rather large folders.

Jones then turned her attention to her computer and the men took this as a sign to leave. When Ian shut the door behind him he said, "She still didn't answer the question on blackmail."

"I know, but right now I want to speak to agent Daniels." John said.


	10. Chapter 10

******I don't own anything**

**Enjoy :)**

* * *

Alex and Ben walked towards Smithers office. They knocked but got no response. Knowing that attempting to get in to leave the phone on Smithers desk could probably cause a large explosion or something just as deadly they wisely walked away and headed for the cafe a couple of doors down from the bank.

"I saved your arse on that Snakehead mission!" Ben said finally.

"At which point?" Alex asked curiously as they cued up with their sandwiches and drinks.

"Do you remember that nice cage fight you visited?" Ben asked.

"I could have gotten myself out of their... probably" the last part was said in a whisper.

"What about when you set of the tracking device in your shoe and I came and took you away from being sold piece by piece. I mean you'd have to be _blind_ to think that I didn't save you then!" Ben said with a grin as he handed some money over to the lady at the till. They walked over to a quiet corner that had no people nearby even though due to the time of day the cafe was quite empty. Alex had once told Ben about how they had been planning to take his eyes out first on the island.

"I would have to say that that was one of your worst puns you have ever come up with. You should really stop trying. And as for the rescue mission to get me, you just happened to be the operative that they assigned. They could have sent anyone." Alex said finding a small amount of enjoyment in annoying Ben, almost as much fun as taunting terrorists and criminals.

Ben took a large bite of his tuna, mayo and salad sandwich and then attempted to speak.

"I would sway dat dat was a gweat pum!" Ben attempted. Alex raised an eyebrow and Ben swallowed and repeated, "I said, I would say that that was a great pun"

"What was a great pun?" said a voice behind Alex.

Ian and John brought up two seats to the circular table.

"I'm just insulting Ben's bland sense of humour." Alex said with a shrug as if implying that he did this often and in truth, he did.

"You killed Ash." John said staring straight at Ben. It was a simple plain statement.

"Didn't you listen to the dead SCORPIA agent when he said that my partner killed Ash? Ben is my partner." Alex said as if killing was as simple a conversation as the weather.

"I did." Ben answered ignoring Alex's previous comment.

"Do either of you guys want any breakfast seeing as neither of you have any money?" Alex asked not too keen to sit through a conversation including Ash and his death.

"Yeah sure." said Ian understanding Alex's discomfort and Ian and John gave Alex their requests.

Alex walked off.

"I walked into the room knowing that all inside were my enemy. I saw him lift the gun on me and fire so I fired back." Ben explained.

"Was Alex there?" John said. He guessed that the boy was according to the assassin's words.

"Yes" Ben answered, "I was barely conscious because I had been shot. Alex and Major Yu exchanged a few words and then the man on the floor started to speak. I tried to stay conscious so listened to the conversation. The man explained that he had been the one to plant the bomb. He also explained that he had been working for the enemy the whole mission. Somehow Alex seemed to know this. He said something about how all his gadgets went missing apart from the ones no one knew about and how everything always went wrong and so on. After I heard that he was Alex's godfather I felt guilty. I still do sometimes." Ben admitted.

"Don't," John said bitterly, "the bastard betrayed me and my wife, his country and then my son. I want to kill the bastard!"

"Unfortunately," said Alex coming towards the table with more food, "he's already dead and I don't remember him having a grave to dance on either."

The men took their foods and sat eating in silence until Ben's phone rang. He walked off and muttered quietly into it for a few minutes before rejoining the table.

"Well that was Jones," he explained, "and she just explained the arrangements for the next few weeks or more. She's not sure if there will be more assassination attempts so you can go to a safe house or stay at your house but that is more risky and you will be accompanied by an SAS team and myself."

"I want to stay at the house" Alex said.

"I think, three spies-" Alex glared at the man "four spies and an SAS team can handle any problem, I think the house in Chelsea will be fine." Ian put in. In all truth he wanted to see if the house had changed much.

"The house it is then." John joined in seeing no reason to object.

Alex became very thoughtful for a second and then spoke up.

"Which SAS team?" he asked Ben. Ben started fiddling with his watch strap slightly.

"Well, Jones wanted someone you knew..." Ben started and cringed waiting for a response.

Although Alex knew who Ben was implying he had to check and hope the he was wrong in his assumption.

"Which team?" he said more slowly.

"K unit." Ben said.

Alex let out a sigh and said in his most sarcastic voice, "Oh brilliant."

"Wasn't K unit the team who came into our room? The one who we found out we both knew?" Ian asked.

"Yeah, that one" Alex said annoyed.

"Don't you get on with them well or something? You seemed fine at the hospital." John asked.

"Let's just say we aren't best friends or anything." Alex said sourly.

"Wait how did you know K unit?" Fox asked after missing the earlier explanation.

"I was there when Wolf and Eagle joined and saw their trials and Ian worked with your unit when you were on the team" John explained.

"I thought you seemed slightly familiar." Ben said to Ian.

"Ben was in K unit though, you don't seem to have a problem with him." John said.

"Yes but let's just say that Ben apologised for his... reactions towards me." Alex explained.

"Would you care to elaborate?" John asked.

"Not particularly. Now can we go home, I need a shower" Alex said and then walked off.

"..."

"Don't worry," Ben said, "he's normally like this."

"Would you mind expanding on his... brief explanation?" Ian asked.

"Well, Alex was put into K unit for a fortnight or near enough and, well, we didn't really like the idea much at the time and kind of made that very obvious to him." Ben explained trying to put it in the kindest light possible so he wouldn't get his head bitten off. With that he went after Alex and left the other two to follow.

* * *

They had an hour before K unit was supposedly turning up and after a shower both Ian and John sat at the kitchen table to read Alex's file.

'_Agent Rider was asked to come into 'the bank' after the death of his uncle and an incident at Striker and Sons' _the file started. Ian and John looked at each other questioningly, _'After that he was gently persuaded to join-'_

"WHAT?" John shouted out outraged.

'_Gently persuaded' _the file said.

Ben and Alex ran in both armed with their fire arms up and ready. When they saw there was no threat they lowered their guns.

"Care to explain the outburst?" Alex asked as though he didn't have a gun in his hand or anything of the sort.

"Care to explain what 'gently persuaded' means?" John countered.

Alex walked over to the file and read the line and actually laughed. Ben walked forwards and read the line. He had read Alex's file since they were partners and all but he still found the line amusing.

"You said they blackmailed Alex." Ian said to Ben.

"You didn't tell Jones I was the one who said that did you?" Ben asked.

"Yes..." John answered not sure what was going on.

"Damn, I probably wasn't meant to tell you and all." Ben said.

"Would you care to explain what they're going on about?" Ian said smacking the file with the back of his hand.

"They threatened Jack's visa and the house and money and a crappy boarding school since they were my guardians." Alex explained and then remembered a question that had been bugging him for since Ian died, "Why did you leave me in the hands of the devil by the way? I mean why didn't you make Jack my guardian or something in your will?"

"What do you mean they were your guardians?" Ian asked. John glared at his brother.

"I mean that when I woke up after being drugged and taken to Wales to start training and they discussed my future, why did they say that according to your will you had made 'the bank' my legal guardians. Did you think it was a joke or something, did it amuse you as much as it amused you to train me?" Alex spat.

Ian was taken back at how annoyed Alex looked. Anger was too much emotion for Alex to show so he only showed annoyance but his voice was angry.

"Ok, that is a lie. I put Jack as your guardian and as I explained to Mrs Jones and your dad, I wanted you to protect yourself. As you've seen this life can catch up to you when you're least prepared." Ian explained and Alex gave a small nod of understanding, "Also, if, when I told you what I did, if I told you, I thought that it was possible you might want to join this career and I wanted you to survive out of skill and not luck which might one day run out."

Alex nodded and accepted the answer, "Fair enough." he said and walked off to prepare a room for John in Jack's now spare room and the other spare room for the SAS. Due to space shortage it was possible that Ben would have to sleep on the floor of Alex's room but he had a large room and had no problem with the idea.

John and Ian went back to reading the file and Ben went to help Alex. He knew where everything was and so started on Jack's room. He knew that Alex was never too keen to go in there and when it had been cleared out to give things back to Jack's family Alex had let MI6 do it and stayed in his room.

The doorbell rang just as Ian and John were near the middle of the Point Blanc mission file and Ben had almost finished Jack's room while Alex had just finished the spare room.

At this point Ian and John were even more furious at MI6. What the hell were they thinking about any of this? Honestly.

Everyone dropped what they were doing and walked over to the door. This was a house full of spies, the people upstairs couldn't hear the people downstairs and vice versa so were not aware that the others were planning to get the door. John signalled Ian not knowing that Alex was doing the same with Ben to stay quiet. They met up by the stairs and Alex walked forward to answer the door leaving Ben on the stairs and John by the rails with Ian behind him. Alex had his gun behind his back when he opened the door. He slacked slightly as he opened the door.

"K unit." he said bitterly.


	11. Chapter 11

**Enjoy**

**I don't own any of Alex Rider. I own the laptop that I am typing on but otherwise my parents own the house and everything else so, laptop, you are my only real possession... actually, they brought that too and Anthony Horowitz owns Alex Rider and all the characters. This is a non profit based story.**

* * *

K unit stood at the door that Alex was currently blocking with Wolf at the front. Alex slacked his arm holding the gun so that it wasn't hidden behind his back and then put it in his trouser waste band.

"I hear we get to baby sit you." Wolf said bitterly.

"And I have to endure you for god knows how long." Alex replied in the same bitter tone.

"Right," Ben cut in, "can we try and get along this time?"

After a long glare they both answered.

"Fine." they chorused.

Ian and John just stood blank faced wondering what was going on.

"Why don't you come in?" Ian said finally.

Alex stepped out of the way to let them in but he didn't lose his glare on Wolf. Wolf led the way in followed by the rest of K unit. The corridor was very crowded by the time they were all in. Each man was carrying a large duffle bag either slung over their shoulder or carried by their sides.

"Alex, take the men up to their rooms and let them settle in." John ordered. Alex gave a small nod and started wedging his way along the wall to get past the SAS men towards the stair case. Ben stepped out of the way to let them pass.

"I haven't finished in Jack's room." Ben called up after Alex.

"I'll do it." Alex cried back down. He led the way up to the spare room and left the men, without a word he headed for Jack's room. He stopped outside the door. It was a silly little thing, he had this feeling of dread as he tried to walk into the room as if something was keeping him from going in. Slowly he walked in and assessed the changes Ben had made to the bedding and the changes that the last group of people had made when they cleared the room.

Back downstairs the three spies felt the release of tension.

"I know you mentioned that they didn't get on, but that seemed a bit excessive." John said.

"Yeah," said Ben rubbing the back of his neck, "they don't like each other much. We weren't too friendly with Alex when we first met. He was a 14 year old at a training camp for the elite. We worked hard to get there and then he just jumped in. It made us kind of upset."

Ben knew he was dulling down the situation largely but he didn't want to admit that he and K unit had been bulling the boy, especially to two spies who could kill him with the slightest movement of their pinkies.

"You said similar to that at the cafe," Ian said getting slightly annoyed, "please expand!"

"Fine," Ben sighed giving in, "we mainly just ignored him and left him be, but Wolf went out of his way to try and get Alex binned. We thought he was some rich man's son who wanted to give the boy a taste of the real world or something. None of us considered a different view. Wolf met him in Point Blanc and I'm not sure his view changed and I met him on the Snakehead mission and apologised."

"And has he forgiven any of you?" John asked before he let his anger out on the wrong person.

"If you hadn't guessed, I seem to have forgiven Ben. As for the others, not so much." said Alex as he walked down the stairs. None of them jumped, but Ben turned to face the teen.

"Will you stop doing that? Honestly, do you enjoy creeping up on me like that?" Ben asked.

"Does it annoy you?" Alex asked innocently.

"Incredibly!" Ben exclaimed.

"Then no, it's too much fun." said Alex with a blank face.

Ben growled and went upstairs to go check on the other men before he headed out and grab some essential things so he could stay at Alex's.

John turned and walked past Ian to go continue reading the file.

"Hey Alex," Ian said with a smirk growing on his face, "want to go see if you've improved in fighting?"

"What do you mean? Do you want to see that I can finally whoop your arse?" Alex replied, returning the smirk.

"You seem so positive you're going to beat me." Ian said in a hurt mocking voice, "Let's put that to the test. I bet a tenner you couldn't beat me!"

"You're on." Alex replied with a small grin.

With that, they both headed to the living room and started moving the furniture to a safe distance. Alex shut the shutters at the window so that no one would peer in during the fight and think it was anything serious. Once they were both satisfied with the cleared area they stood opposite each other and were ready to fight.

Both waited for the other to advance. Ian decided to get the fight going so lunged forward throwing a false punch at Alex's head and then using the other arm to punch Alex's stomach, Alex blocked both and used his leg to try and trip up Ian.

As the fight continued both people found it hard to lay a proper hit on the other by dodging and blocking. The fight continued for about 10 minutes. Each step was silent apart from the odd loud step causing only a slight thump on the carpeted floor, not enough to stir the interest of the men upstairs. John, however, had heard one of the thumps and walked to the sitting room door to see them fighting. He watched curiously from the door stop, watching each and every move. minutest few minutes he moved back to start the third mission report.

Alex landed the final blow by using a SCORPIA strike tactic to get Ian on the floor. Both were panting heavily after the fight, Ian more so than Alex. The fact that he had stayed fighting for 10 minutes was a miracle. His muscles were still a bit weak but not too bad, he had only been frozen for just under two years.

Alex sat down and got his breathing under control.

Ian started laughing and Alex joined in.

"Bloody hell," Ian said finally, "been back five minutes and already owing you a tenner. If I bet against you again I'll be bankrupt before the end of the week!"

Alex just laughed. If felt good to laugh.

"Do you remember that time when you were teaching me to be stealthy?" Alex said already laughing more at the memory, "and I wanted to see if I could sneak up on you and so hid behind the sofa, and when you came in I jumped at you. But you side stepped and I fell through mid air?"

Ian laughed harder.

"No, the best one was when I was teaching you to abseil and you tried to do an impression of Superman when I had loosened your rope slightly and you came smashing down. You went unconscious and then woke up shouting that you were Batman!" Ian laughed again and Alex laughed as well.

"I can't even remember why I change into imagining I was Batman! And anyway, I was like eight." Alex said with a laugh.

"I think you hit your head pretty. Also, you went on about something like how skill full and planned your landing was or something." Ian said laughing harder.

The soldiers and Ben headed downstairs to check out the commotion and saw Alex and Ian rolling on the sitting room floor with all the furniture tucked away. John also came to see why there was so much laughter.

Ben looked incredibly surprised that Alex was actually showing so much emotion. He just walked away shaking his head and went to go and get his stuff from his house.

After a few moments Alex and Ian acknowledged the soldiers standing in the door way staring at them. Alex dropped all emotion from his face.

"Anything funny enough to share?" John said speaking up.

"Just remembering fun times." Ian said with a grin. Although Alex seemed hard on the exterior, he was still Alex on the interior, just buried deep down.


	12. Chapter 12

**To non ff user reviewers**

**Evgenia: here is your update, I'm glad you have enjoyed the story so far and will enjoy this chapter too**

**OmNomNom: I knew who you were by your name and then mentioning how you still had exams, well they're all over (finally) and we get to spend practically all next month together (kill me now!). Also, I am not naming this story after your actor love interest... HE IS MARRIED! Oh and Ms Cobain wouldn't kill me, you'd have to go back into school to tell her and you're too lazy!**

**Enough of this, on with the show!**

* * *

K unit had been staying at Alex's house for almost a week now. There had been no real contact between the SAS men and the Riders, apart from Alex and Ben although, Ben hardly counted as SAS. They ate meals when they were hungry, they did what they wanted, and everyone in the house just did anything really. Alex didn't really speak to anyone other than Ben normally. Sometimes he reminisced with Ian about things, but Alex was still uncertain of the newest or oldest members of his family entering his life. Alex and Wolf made no attempt to get along and the others just didn't mind about much.

John stood and observed Alex. This was his son, the boy who seemed emotionless. He would watch the occasional conversation between Alex and Ian and feel a pang of jealousy. He was a spy, an excellent one at that and so showed no real response to how he felt but that didn't stop him feeling.

That night John was going up to bed. Alex had gone up a while ago, Ben had joined K unit, Ian and John in watching TV and chatting a little. Ben had gone up about 10 minutes ago and John decided that sleep sounded like a good option now. He walked past Alex's room, his room was next door.

"... just shut the door!" came Alex's voice. The door was open a tiny amount, just enough for John to see a small amount of inside.

"No, get off you're lazy arse and do it yourself!" Ben retorted.

"Could you turn the light out while you're at it." Alex added ignoring Ben's protest.

"I'm not your slave you know!" Ben replied.

"Then I guess we sleep with the light on and door open." said Alex in a plain voice.

"I'm not paying the bills, I can sleep easily in this condition and so can you." Ben responded reasonably. They fell silent for a bit.

John felt guilty about listening in to the conversation but he wanted to know more about his son, and K unit didn't really know him. Ian knew the old Alex and Ben didn't want to betray Alex's trust by saying something he shouldn't. Sure, he had read the files, so had Ian, this still gave him little insight to what effect it had on his son other that what he could see. He could see nothing though, that was it, Alex showed barely any emotion. He had nightmares and for some reason, if anyone but Ben tried to sooth him during his nightmares, they would get hit, worse than Ben at the hospital.

They started talking again.

"Alex?" Ben asked.

"Yes Ben?" Alex sighed in reply as if he had been disturbed.

"Oh come on Alex," Ben said, "it's not as if you were actually almost asleep!"

"You never know." muttered Alex just loud enough for John to hear.

"Just wondering, what do you think of this whole thing with your dad and uncle being back?" Ben asked. John was surprised this was only being brought up now since they had been back for almost a week.

"Why do you ask?" Alex asked.

"Oh come on, you know it's been on my mind since we were at the hospital, you just redirected the question!" Ben exclaimed.

"True." Alex mumbled, "I'm not sure."

"What do you mean you're not sure?" Ben asked in disbelief.

"I mean life is all good and great," Alex said sarcastically, "what do you think I mean?"

"Alex, trying to understand what you mean is like trying to understand you, impossible." Ben said seriously.

"I mean I don't know what or how to feel with this. And why are you trying to understand what I feel, and why am I explaining this to you?" Alex asked.

"Because I want to be able to understand you even just slightly and you're explaining this to me because you need at least one person to confined in." Ben explained, "Alex, you have family again, you need to start making attachments to people. These people aren't going to run off on you. You need to try and get to know them."

"How do you know they won't leave? My dad and Ian already left once, Jack's gone, my mum hasn't come back from the dead like dad and Ian, what's stopping them from dying or leaving?" Alex asked coldly. John shuddered at the coldness.

"Please Alex, just think about it. Maybe call Tom tomorrow. Try and get back in contact with him. He's you're friend whether you like it or not." Ben said.

There was some mumbling that sounded like Alex but John couldn't make it out and then some scuffling of sheets.

John headed to the bathroom. He made little noise when he came out yet he heard a noise from Alex's room. He walked over.

"Whoever's outside, could you turn the light out and shut the door please." Alex shouted.

"Sure." John replied and did just that.


	13. Chapter 13

**I don't own anything.**

* * *

A week after their little chat, Ben had sat in the kitchen and finally persuaded Alex to at least text Tom. After months of not talking or any sort of communication, Alex had no idea what to say. In the end the conversation had gone like this:

_Alex: Hi Tom, I know I haven't been in contact for a while. How are you? _

_Tom: ALEX! You're actually alive? I thought you were dead! Why the hell haven't you contacted me?_

_Alex: Yeah, sorry about that. Look, I'm back and I want to have a slightly normal life again, do you want to meet up sometime? Maybe play footie on the common?_

_Tom: That sounds great. Unlike some, I still have school to attend so maybe we could meet on Sat or Sun?_

_Alex: Saturday sounds good. See you then._

Alex knew that although Tom hadn't said much in the texts, his head was whizzing with questions and they wouldn't so much play football as they would 20 questions.

Ben had seemed satisfied with his accomplishment of getting Alex to communicate with others outside the house and showed it with a small smile. It was Thursday that day and so Alex would have a day to prepare himself for the bombardment of questions.

Just then Ian walked into the kitchen and noticed the small smile on Ben's face.

"You look happy." Ian said as he went towards the fridge. It was a strange thing for a spy to show emotion.

"He's just doomed me to a bombardment of questions." Alex moaned as he let his head droop onto the table with a loud bang.

Ian turned from the fridge and raised an eyebrow at Alex and then at Ben. Ben laughed.

"I have begun reintroducing him to the outside world." Ben stated happily.

"What's this about the outside world?" asked John as he walked into the kitchen.

"I'm meeting Tom on Saturday" Alex complained.

Ian and Ben both laughed at Alex's attempt to be miserable.

"Why is that a bad thing?" Ian asked.

"I haven't spoken to him in almost a year and so he's going to either drown me with questions or bore me to death with his many love interests since I've been gone. Either way I end up dead" Alex grumbled. In truth he looked forwards to seeing Tom but instead of looking at the positive side of things he looked at the negative such as the questions and mindless rambling.

"And Tom is...?" John asked curiously.

"Alex's best friend when I left." Ian said informing John. John nodded at the explanation and went to get some tea.

For the most part of the day nothing happened. K unit looked out of windows, did perimeter checks, informed the higher ups of any cars or people that stood by the house for more than 3 minutes to get a face check, the usual. Ian and Alex talked a little, Ian and John talked, Ben and Alex talked, Ben and K unit talked. John talked to Ben and Wolf. Wolf went out of his way to avoid Alex and vice versa. K unit generally stayed out of his way. Things went as usual in the Rider house. Nothing out of the ordinary. Almost.

All spies had noticed that at some meals Alex didn't eat much. This mainly happened at dinner or breakfast. John and Ian didn't understand why, only Ben did. Today John noticed that Alex had had barely any breakfast or lunch.

That night everyone was too lazy to cook so it was agreed on a take away. By majority vote, Chinese take away was ordered from Double Dragons just around the corner. Everyone sat in the living room waiting for the Chinese apart from Eagle who was sulking because Wolf had told him that putting both hands up did not count as two votes, therefore, they were not having pizza.

Within 45 minutes of ordering, there was a ring at the door bell and John opened the door with a gun within grabbing distance on the mantel piece just out of sight of anyone outside the door, K unit stood armed and ready hiding in the living room with Ian and Ben. Alex stood behind his dad with a gun hidden from sight. It turned out to be the Chinese delivery so John gave the man the money he owed and tip, took the food and shut the door. All weapons were put away to easy access areas but out of sight and everyone headed to the kitchen where the food was placed on the table in the tinfoil containers and everyone grabbed a seat and served themselves.

Alex added a small amount of rice to his plate and some chicken chow mien and then tipped a small amount of soy sauce on top. Ben sent Alex a worried glance. John and Ian looked at the small portion and then at each other.

Everyone sat and ate and talked about nothing and everything. The conversation ranged from favourite weapons to how the day went.

Wolf turned to Alex and saw how little he had on his plate. He ignored it and pilled the greasy, sauce covered food onto his plate and scoffed it down. When he was done he refilled his plate like the others on the table. He noticed that Alex hadn't refilled his plate or even finished the miniscule amount he started with, he had just twiddled his fork around a bit and left it.

John left the table quickly for a quick bathroom trip.

"Did you want something?" Alex asked in a monotone voice when he realised Wolf was inspecting his plate.

"You aren't eating." Wolf stated.

"I'm not hungry." Alex replied in the same monotone voice.

"Are you just damn picky or worried about your weight." Wolf said with a sneer. The others quietened their conversations to listen in.

"Wolf..." Ben began in a warning voice. Alex gave a small gesture indicating that he shouldn't interfere. Ian saw this too and also obeyed.

"My eating habits are none of your concern." Alex said with a shrug.

"Your father paid for the food and you're not even going to touch it? There are people who would die for that little bit you have on your plate! You ungrateful double-oh-nothing." Wolf spat raising his voice. Just then John walked in and stood by the door. He was about to comment but Alex beat him to it.

"Going back to childish names again are we Wolfy? You're not going to assume I have rich parents or are you going to try and get me kicked out by kicking me over the trip wire again? Oh, wait, no, there's no trip wire here." Alex said in an innocent voice, "Oh, and any punishment you or your unit received without known cause was not because I ratted on you, it was because there were security tapes in the killing house."

"No one calls me Wolfy." Wolf growled, "And the sarge did give reason for his punishment, his matches going missing and being found with our unit."

"How sad for you. I mean, not getting binned and having a hot meal and then getting kitchen duty." Alex replied in mocking sadness.

"I practically took a bullet for you," Wolf said getting very angry, "I thought I was protecting you but all you did was go back into deathly situations and try and get yourself killed one way or another and leave school. I should have let her kill you, maybe then you wouldn't need to try so hard to die, it would be over with."

That was the last straw. Alex stood up and glared at Wolf. Alex's look sent the hairs on the back of everyone's necks stand on end. Alex was deadly, only now could they see it.

"You think," he said in a low voice, "that I wanted this life? That I wanted to watch others die around me, some innocent, killed purely because they followed me? You think I enjoy killing others? You think it's fun to watch your friends abandon you because you lie and lie, you think it entertains me to be either in hospital or on a mission for more time in a year then I am actually at my house? Do you think I enjoyed watching the only person I thought of as family get killed because she wanted to protect and help me? Or maybe you would find it fun that the only person who actually knew your family was the one who, as far as you were aware, killed them and was trying to kill you? Sound like a fun life? I have no options!"

With that Alex walked out. The silence in the room was so thick you could practically cut it.

"Nice going Wolf." Ben said with huge sarcasm breaking the silence and glaring at the man. A breath was released at the noise which no one knew was being held.

"He's not been eating properly since we got here, you're not his parent so therefore have not right to confront him!" Ian snarled.

"Actually, it's been happening for more than just the two weeks since you came back." Ben admitted into his hands.

"Any idea why?" John asked. He was furious at Wolf but wasn't showing it.

Ben looked the man in the eyes.

"Yes," Ben answered truthfully, "but he has to tell you why. I'm not breaking his trust."

John nodded his understanding and Ben looked back at Wolf.

"I have taken more than one bullet for that boy and I will never regret doing that. By saving his life he has saved mine personally and thousands of others." Ben growled.

Wolf stayed silent.

"I don't want to hear you speak to Alex until you have the forgiveness of my son. Until that point you are not even to look him in the eye without my say so." John said with threatening calmness.

Wolf nodded.

John walked out and everyone else ate in silence.

John walked up to Alex's room and saw the door open a jar. John knocked, waited a couple of seconds and then walked in. The room wasn't hugely messy, just crowded. There was a makeshift mattress on the floor made up of a barely inflated air bed with sheets strewed on it. Next to that bed was a duffel bag and a rucksack spilling some clothes and other things onto the floor. There was a chest of draws with a couple of draws slightly open with some clothing slipping out of the top. The walls were decorated with football posters. The shelves contained some random items, some medals and trophies from years back when Alex had had a social life. There was a desk covered in papers, pens and all sorts with a swivel chair tucked under it. On the bedside table there was a picture of Alex and Ian in some snowy place looking like they were skiing and next to that there was a picture of Alex, Ian and a red headed woman who John guessed was Jack. On the bed was Alex, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

"You can sit down you know." Alex said not moving any muscle but his jaw.

John walked further in and took a seat on the swivel chair and turned to face Alex. They sat in silence until finally Alex sat up on his bed and leaned against the bedpost.

"Did you want something?" he asked.

"Why don't you talk to me?" John asked. He remembered the conversation he had heard between Alex and Ben about how Alex feared they would leave him again but he had to hear it properly.

"I'm talking to you now" Alex responded.

"You know what I mean," John said, "you talk with Ben and Ian but for the most part you ignore me."

"You've been inspecting me since you've come back." Alex stated.

"You're avoiding the question."

"You didn't deny or agree to my statement."

"My question was asked first."

"If you answer my statement I'll answer your question."

"Fine," John said "yes, I have been inspecting you. By you noticing I'm assuming you've been watching me too? Anyway, your turn."

Alex sighed, "The truth, I don't trust easily. You left my life before I knew you and mum, followed by Ian and then Jack. It took Ben ages for me to belive he wouldn't walk off too but since I was in a lot of life and death situations with him, I had to trust him. I don't trust that you won't just go again. I almost started trusting Ash before I realised the events that made me realise that he had betrayed me."

Alex looked down at his hands in sadness hoping his dad would understand.

John sat and nodded accepting what he was told.

"Alex," John said getting up and walking over to the bed and sitting next to Alex with his back against the wall and putting his legs up, "I'm not going to leave you. Not for a long while anyway. I get the no trusting thing, it comes with the world of espionage but, trust me when I say that you need to trust some people. I had your mother, Ian, Ash, or at least I thought I did, my SAS back up team and then I had you. Ian had me, your mother, he treated her not as a sister in law, just a sister, he never trusted Ash, then he had his back up team and he got on with a few other agents. You need people to trust too. You have Ben and have accepted Ian and I want you to know you can trust me."

Alex lent his head on his father's shoulder and John put an arm around him and held him tight.

"Sorry for not trusting you." Alex whispered.

"Sorry for not being their for you." John said putting his chin on Alex's head, "Now, would you like to explain why you don't eat. Ben is a good friend, he explained that you had to say."

Alex gave another sigh and sat up, "I'm guessing you know about the nightmares?"

John nodded.

"What I'm guessing you don't know is that they can often result in all the food in my stomach ending up in the toilet." Alex explained.

John finally understood.

"So, you don't eat so you can't throw up." he summarised.

"Exactly, except I didn't want to explain that to Wolf." Alex said.

"Well I can tell you that you left the man silent." John said with a chuckle. Alex smirked.

"Oh and I also told Wolf that he wasn't to look or speak to you without my permission until you forgave him." John said.

Alex laughed and then said, "This could be interesting. Right, I think I'm going to hit the hay and go to sleep. Night."

"Night." said John as he kissed Alex on the forehead and got up to go to the door but stopped. "One last thing," he said, "why is it only Ben can wake you up with minimal damage?"

"He does this thing where he wraps his fingers around my wrist. It means he's someone I can trust, he doesn't plan to hurt me." Alex explained. John nodded and turned to go back downstairs again but stopped once more.

"Do you want me to tell the others?" he asked.

"No, not all of them. I don't mind Ian knowing," Alex said and then said, "actually, in case the others have to wake me up for some reason maybe you should tell them... even if this would give me an excuse to hit them."

John smiled and finally went back downstairs to join the silent meal.


	14. Chapter 14

**I don't own Alex Rider or any of the characters.**

**Enjoy**

* * *

It was Saturday morning at around 3:50am so everyone was in bed and asleep. The only thing that could be heard in the house was the occasional noise from the radiators or someone shifting in their bed... until now.

There was a small noise coming from the back garden door, a light tapping. Next the door creaked as it was pushed open the way it usually did, and then some voices came from the kitchen and footsteps.

By this point Ben and Alex were alert and sitting up in their beds looking at each other. Seconds later they silently shot out of bed and grabbed a gun each. In the rooms next door, Ian and John were doing the same. K unit were waking up to the noise downstairs and attempting to grab their weapons without making much noise. Snake saw Eagle still fast asleep and threw a shoe at him. That woke the man up with a silent groan. Alex and Ben were the first ones to the top of the stairs waiting to see if the others had woken from the noise. Moments later Ian came out of his room holding his small hand gun and John came out of his room while loading his 35mm browning pistol. The whispering downstairs was slightly louder making it sound as if the intruders were making their way into the living room. By the whispering and footsteps Alex had estimated no more than seven.

Alex silently started making his way downstairs just as K unit made their way out of their room. Everyone followed Alex as quietly as possible towards the sitting room. The door had been knocked lightly so that it was shut but not completely. Alex looked behind him to make sure everyone was ready. When they all nodded that they were, Alex turned back to the door and breathed out slowly and then flung the door open and quickly made his way in with his gun raised followed by the others all with their guns pointing towards the intruders.

Alex was the first to drop his gun and sighed. The others looked at the intruders and then at Alex. All were very confused except for Ian, he recognised them somehow.

"Druggie?" one shouted. His voice was a lot higher than normal. It could have something to do with having 8 guns pointed towards him but Alex wasn't sure.

"Lower your guns." Alex sighed.

"You know them?" Cheetah asked.

"Yeah, just some idiots I used to go to school with." Alex explained rubbing his eyes. It was far too early for this.

"Sit down." Wolf ordered the intruders. They all obeyed instantly and sat on the sofa. There were five boys.

Alex walked over and sat opposite them, the others either stood behind him or sat next to him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Rumour is your dead." one brave boy spoke up. His name was Nathan. He dropped his tough guy act when he noticed the guns still in everyone's hands. Alex laid his gun on his knee.

"As you can see I'm not." Alex said gesturing to himself to prove his point.

"I thought your uncle was dead. So, it's true that you're in a gang then?" another boy spoke up. This one was James. He spoke out of curiosity not bravery.

"As you can see he's not, neither is my dad," Alex said gesturing to them both to prove it, "and I'm not in a gang for god sake! Is that rumour still going round?"

James nodded and Alex sighed again.

"What's this about drugs and gangs?" John asked glaring at the intruders.

"When _the bank_ employed me, being sick was my excuse for disappearing. Everyone at school just believed I did drugs." Alex said turning to his dad. He then turned back to the other boys.

"Can one of you please answer the first question?" Alex asked. There was silence. Alex groaned. This was going to be difficult.

"Harry, why don't you answer it?" Alex insisted looking at the boy at the end of the sofa.

"Um... well... we... you see..." Harry stuttered staring at the large gun in Wolf's hand.

"Alright why don't you give it a try Bill?" Alex said to the boy in the middle.

"We... We..." the boy started looking at his comrades for help but all seemed either transfixed on Alex or the guns surrounding them.

"Is it even worth asking you Johnny?" Alex asked the last boy.

Johnny just shrunk back into the sofa and looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

"And at school you never seemed to want to shut up around me," Alex said mockingly, "what happened?"

There was silence. Alex looked up at the others.

"What do we do with them?" he asked.

"You're not going to kill us are you?" Nathan cried jumping up. Fear was imminent on his face. He started running to the door.

"We aren't going to kill you!" Alex shouted out before the boy reached the door. Snake caught the boy before he left and led him back to the chair and stood guard in case any of the others tried to make a runner.

James almost look tearful.

Alex laughed. The people who had annoyed him most were now practically screaming for mummy in their minds.

Ben shot him a quizzical look followed by Ian and John and K unit.

"Sorry, sorry. These boys made my life miserable, seeing that now their practically crapping themselves. Their faces are priceless!" Alex explained with a grin, "Mind if I get my camera."

Ben laughed and Ian gave Alex a joking whack on the back of the head.

"Stop being so rude Alex" he said with a small smile.

"Look, we're sorry, we're sorry about breaking in and we're sorry about being mean to you at school. Can we please go home now?" begged Johnny.

Ben ignored this comment and answered Alex's previous question.

"We have to inform '6 about this. They'll have to sign the OSA probably then they can go home." Ben explained.

Alex groaned and leaned into the back of his chair. It was going to be a long night.

"Ben, would you be a dear and phone '6 while I talk to these charming boys." Alex said with mocking innocence. Ben rolled his eyes and walked off to make the phone call.

"You guys may want to take a seat. This could take a while." Alex said to John and k unit. Each man shuffled around the room and found a seat. John sat by Alex.

"Well you won't be leaving for a while so you might as well get talking." John said. No one spoke so Alex took over again.

"Here's how it's going to work. I ask a question, you guys ask a question. That way everyone is happy and we all get answers." Alex explained, he talked as though he was talking to 5 year olds.

The boys nodded.

"Alright, you as a group can ask one question and then I ask a question. Go." Alex said tiredly.

The boys whispered together wondering what to ask until they all nudged Harry forward to ask.

"What were you doing when you were _sick?"_ he asked.

"Should you be answering that?" Ian asked.

"Does it matter? They have to sign the OSA anyway," Alex said, "fine, I had a job working for the government."

"That's not an answer!" Bill protested and then noticed the gun on the coffee table which John had put down and went silent.

"Fine, I worked of a secret part of the government." Alex explained.

"Like a spy?" James asked.

"Not your turn to question. My turn, ok, why did you break in?" Alex responded.

This time they pushed Nathan forward to answer.

"Well," he started, "we didn't think you were here. We wanted to see if it was true about the rumour of dead bodies in your house."

Alex laughed at this and Ian smirked.

"Your turn." Alex said with a grin.

There was more whispering and this time Harry spoke up.

"Why does everyone here have weapons if you're not in a gang or anything?"

"We're expecting..." Alex thought how to put this, "less welcome visitors, who we don't like very much, and who seem to hate me a lot."

Ben walked in at that moment and spoke up, "That," he said, "is the understatement of the year."

Alex smirked.

"Which part? They hate me or we don't like them?" Alex asked with a grin.

Ben looked as if he were contemplating the question.

"Both." he answered finally and then added, "They'll be here in 10 minutes. Apparently, Jones is sending me a special letter or something." The last part Ben said with feigned excitement.

"Ooooh! Sounds interesting!" Alex responded in the same way.

He then turned back to the visitors.

"My turn," he said, "how did you break in?"

At this Alex was genuinely curious. He was sure the locks should have been able to keep out a group of 16 year old boys.

"My brother is a locks specialist," Nathan piped up, "he's shown me a few tricks."

Alex nodded and seemed genuinely impressed. Nathan always seemed so dumb in class.

"Alex, why did you leave school?" Johnny asked.

"That counts as your next question and the answer is because I work for a group of dicks who wouldn't let me have a normal life and to be honest with you, I couldn't be bothered with the constant falling behind class and sick notes." Alex replied.

"Mind if I ask your next question Al?" Ian asked.

"By all means." Alex said gesturing for him to go for it.

"Why did everyone assume Alex was into drugs and gangs and things? I mean, I remember Johnny and James actually coming over a couple of times and seeing Alex, Bill and Harry playing football together at some matches. Why jump to that conclusion?" Ian asked.

"It wasn't us who started the rumour," Harry answered, "after you apparently died, Alex went missing for about a month and then came back a bit bruised up with a sick note. Within two weeks he was gone again and then came back again looking beaten up again with another sick note. Within a week of coming back he was gone again and then back and then gone and back again and again each time with a different sick note and more bruises and scars. When he went on the second time people started making up stuff about where he went and when he came back and was questioned all he said was "I've been ill". Only Harris seemed to understand what was going on."

"You have to admit Alex, their reason seems legit." Ian reasoned.

"Hey, I almost believed you about your job and how you died and nearly just left it be when you disappeared." Alex said defensively.

"You honestly didn't suspect anything?" Ian questioned.

"I did, but spy seemed ridiculous!" Alex exclaimed.

"Our turn," Nathan said, "does Harris know about what you do?"

"Yes, I told him a while back. He never believed that I was sick, neither did he think I was into drugs and I needed him to understand why I stank like sewage and was soaking wet with mud everywhere and ripped clothes." Alex explained.

Just then the door bell rang and everyone apart from the 5 intruders stood up and grabbed their guns. Alex and Ian walked to the door leaving the others to defend the boys in the living room in case it was a threat.

Ian opened the door and there stood Crawley.

"Ah Ian, nice to see you back" Crawley said in a bland voice.

Ian put his gun away and shook Crawley's hand.

"Good to be back," he said, "come in" he gestured into the house and led the way to the sitting room.

"Nice to see you again Alex." Crawley greeted.

"And you." Alex responded with a plain face.

"Hello Crawley." John said plainly.

"Hello John," Crawley responded, "these must be the intruders."

"Well, I have to get them to sign the documents and explain the rules so you can occupy yourself for the time being," Crawley explained and then took a letter out of his bag and handed it to Ben, "this is from Jones."

Ben took the letter and nodded his thanks and walked off to read it.

Crawley went through all the boring information on the OSA to the boys which caused cries of outrage until they finally agreed to the terms.

The whole time Alex watched Ben and the way his posture changed when reading his letter and then how he slumped onto a chair at the other end of the room.

When Ben put the letter on the table and his head in his hands Alex stalked over and took the letter and read it.

It read:

_Dear Benjamin Daniels,_

_Due to recent events we have been considering your position at Military Intelligence 6 and have decided that after your current mission you will be stripped of your rank and job within the government. You will no longer have a position at the SAS and will have to reapply._

_Sorry for the inconvenience_

_Mrs T Jones_

Alex stared down at the letter. Why were they doing this?

"I'm so sorry Ben." Alex said sadly giving Ben a comforting squeeze on the shoulder. Ben didn't take his head out of his hands.

"Why is she doing this?" Alex asked turning to Crawley and gesturing to the letter.

Crawley looked up and his face looked as dull as ever.

"Mrs Jones told me to explain that agent Daniels gave information without requesting permission to tell and has become too attached to other agents." Crawley said in a dull voice.

Ben shot out of his seat.

"You mean that when I told John and Ian about how Alex was blackmailed wasn't allowed? They had a right to know. And why has getting attached to Alex been a bad thing. As far as I'm aware it's helped her get reports!" Ben shouted.

"And also your constant complaining about how she treats other agents." Crawley added.

"You mean how I try and get her to stop using Alex?" Ben cried furiously.

Wolf walked over and inspected the letter.

"What the hell?" he cried and slammed it down mumbling as many curse words as he could think of.

John guessed what the letter said, 'you're fired'.

"I'm sorry we told her about you informing us on the blackmail" John said sadly.

"It's not your fault, you had a right to know!" Ben said angrily.

"Eagle," Ian said to the man next to him, "go get some beers and cheer your friend up."

With no need to hear it twice, Eagle got up and headed to the fridge coming back with seven beers and a bottle opener. Ian and John denied the offer and so K unit sat with their old team mate and talked about good old times and how they would enjoy watching him try and reapply for the SAS.

Alex went back over to watch the signing process when he got bored of listening but before he had gotten back to the sofa he saw someone standing in the doorway.

"Die Rid-" the man started before there was a loud bang and a hole in the man's shirt just below the rib cage where blood started oozing out.

Alex stood there with his pistol in his hand pointed up with a small trail of smoke escaping the gun.

The man crumpled but was not dead although he had dropped his gun and couldn't reach for it. Everyone had stood up when the shots were fired. The five boys were so scared, they hadn't expected this when they broke in.

Alex walked over to the dying man and spoke softly to him. Everyone else walked over as Alex bent down to look into the man's eyes.

"Hello again Klaus." Alex said looking at the German mercenary from Malagosto.

"You shall die Rider, you and your family" Klaus cried. Alex used his pinkie to push the bullet further into the man's stomach making Klaus cry in pain.

"That's not what I want to hear. What I want to know is how many people are left?" Alex asked in his calm voice.

"You shall never know! You'll be dead before then!" Klaus shouted trying to keep his breathing under control but failing.

"Crawley do you want him?" Alex asked. The questioned meant that it could be the death of Klaus or he could be spared.

"Yes," Crawley responded, "I'll have some men come and pick him up. Can the team medic come and make him stable?" Crawley said to K unit. Snake shot forward and started tending to the bullet wound.

Alex stood up and went to clean his pinkie and then came back in and looked at the five shaking teenagers.

"This counts as part of the Official Secrets act" he said and then went to sit down.

10 minutes later a pick up team came and took away the unconscious but stable Klaus and Crawley led the teenagers to the door before stopping and turning back.

"Oh and Alex, Mrs Jones would like to see you at the bank on Sunday at midday. Maybe I'll see you then. Goodbye" and with that he walked out.

Alex groaned and looked at his watch: _4:38 _it said. Just great.


	15. Chapter 15

**I do not own Alex Rider or any of the characters in this story. This is all for fun and non profitable**

* * *

It was Saturday afternoon and Alex was dreading his very near future... One hour. In one hour he would be seeing Tom for the first time in just under a year. He looked forward to seeing his former best friend but also feared his reaction. Would he ask questions? Would he leave Alex be and allow him to talk if he were ready? Were they still friends? Theories flew around Alex's head, each trying to prove that it was going to be the right one. Alex hated this uncertainty. It made him cautious about everything. His mind summed up everything that could go wrong and there was a lot that could go wrong.

Alex was so caught up in his own thoughts he completely lost track of the time and his surroundings. Another thing he hated. Alex was yanked out of his thoughts by a knock of his bedroom door and he gave a small jump. He turned around to see Ian standing at his open bedroom door leaning against the door frame with his hand still up where he had knocked.

"Since when do you jump?" Ian questioned.

"Since when do you knock?" Alex replied.

"Touché," Ian said and then, "you ready to go?"

Alex looked down at his watch and was surprised that so much time had gone by. Ian lightly pushed of the door frame and inspected Alex's face with curiosity.

"You alright?" he asked, "You seem put off by something."

Alex looked back at his uncle.

"In all honesty, I have no idea how I feel." he replied. Ian nodded and although he didn't fully understand the answer he accepted it.

"Come on then!" Ian said with a nagging tone and a small smile.

Alex sighed and climbed off his bed and walked over to his uncle and returned the smile. Ian waited for Alex to walk over to him and then he put an arm over the boy's shoulder and guided him down the stairs and to the car that they had been lent by MI6.

It wasn't a long journey and Alex could probably have cycled it but because of their current situation Jones believed that bazooka proof cars were necessary for even the shortest journey.

"Seatbelt." Ian said while concentrating on the road. Alex grinned. Even after being frozen for two years Ian still hadn't changed.

The journey took five minutes and was done in a comfortable silence.

Ian and Alex wandered slowly over to a bench and waited in the agreed area for Tom to show up. Within thirty seconds both boy and man had evaluated their surroundings so they knew the best hiding places and sniper views. They had memorised the basics of each person they saw in case the same person seemed to follow them or appear where ever they were.

10 minutes after arriving both Ian and Alex were getting bored. 11 minutes after they arrived there was the slightest noise of movement behind the bench they were on. Alex narrowed it down to Tom due to the noise he was making, his failed attempts to breath more quietly when it sounded as if he had been running, the fact that if the person were trying to kill them then they would have used a gun to create minimal hazard and avoid a fight that could end badly for either opponent.

"If you plan to make us jump Tom please don't try it." Alex said without turning around.

There was a loud stomping of the foot onto the ground and a loud, annoyed sigh from behind them.

Alex and Ian laughed as Tom came and stood before them looking annoyed and miserable his plan had failed. His face then dropped to mimic that of a fish with his mouth wide open and his bottom jaw bobbing up and down.

"But but but..." he attempted raising his hand and pointing it at Ian whose grin was growing wider and wider each second.

"Nice to see you too Tom, well you haven't changed much since I last saw you. You're still a midget, your hair hasn't change and neither has your eye colour. I'd say the only difference is your voice is deeper and there is a minuscule amount of stubble on your face. When did you hit puberty then?" Ian said with mocking honesty.

Ian and Alex burst into laughter again when Tom started looking between Alex and Ian as if trying to decided whether either one, both or neither of them were real and then he attempted to say a full sentence again.

Finally he remembered how to speak properly.

"What the hell?" he cried. Alex didn't think he was able to actually say much more.

Alex decided to have some fun with confusing Tom.

"Well, when a man and a woman love each other-" Alex started but was cut off by Ian's increasingly loud laughter.

"How the hell is he here?" Tom asked more specifically and then when he saw Alex getting ready for another round of annoying baby making talk he added "And start from when Ian disappears to how he is sitting here."

Alex slumped in his seat and muttered, "Kill joy."

Ian laughed again and Alex let slip a small smile.

"I'm sure Ian would love to explain." Alex said to his uncle. Alex then looked at Tom and gave him a small wink as if to say, just go along with what he says. Alex hadn't mentioned to Ian that Tom knew about MI6 and that he was not a banker and so wanted to see what sort of lie he gave. Alex knew Ian hadn't been paying attention when he explained to the boys who broke in that 'Harris' was the only one who knew about what he did.

"Well, I was at a conference at Cornwall," Ian said after a moments pause, "and someone nicked my car. I don't know the full details but I heard there was a crash. I hired a taxi to take me to the nearest train station and phoned Alex to say I was coming home. My driver took a strange detour to an abandoned warehouse where he pointed a gun and ordered me to give him my money. I later found out his name was Yassen Gregorivitch." Alex kept a blank face while Tom failed to hide the smile of his and so sat next to Alex away from Ian to hide his face, "the man hit me on the head with the back of his gun which knocked me unconscious and caused the loss of my memory." Alex's face was blank apart from the occasional twitching of s lip that refused to stay down and Tom was rubbing his face to hide the tears that were cascading down his face. He could not, however, hide his shoulders that were jumping up and down with his silent laughter, "When I came round, I wandered to the nearest road and was picked up by a kind man who allowed me to stay at his house. He took me to the doctors who claimed that my memory could come back slowly or not at all and so I stayed with the kind man and joined his company. At first I was delivering for him without knowing the truth of the contents. Over time my memory slowly came back. As I rose through the ranks at my work I found that he man was a drug lord and was-" that was the last straw for Tom. He fell of the bench laughing with a bright red face covered in tears and clutched his aching sides as he laughed so hard. Alex couldn't help it, his blank mask failed and he burst into laughter. Ian sat where he was looking genuinely confused. Tom finally calmed myself enough to speak.

"So how many times have you met this thieving cabby then Alex?" Tom asked before he fell into another fit of laughter.

"Hmm," Alex said looking deep in thought, "maybe about four or five times."

Both boys were laughing now leaving Ian to try and figure out what was going on. Finally, after a minute, the pieces clicked.

"Hang on," Ian said, "does this mean you know about what I do?"

Alex and Tom stopped laughing and sat there grinning.

"Yeah, I was the only one who knew about Alex at school." Tom said with a chuckle.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Ian ask bewildered.

"Three reasons," Alex explained, "1. I wanted to see you make a fool of yourself and see how long Tom could actually not laugh, 2. I wanted to confirm that you weren't paying attention when those boys came into our house and 3. I wanted to see how easy it was for you to lie"

The third point was said seriously.

"From what just happened I've learnt that Tom would make a terrible spy and that lying comes too naturally to you and unfortunately I think I seem to have picked that up." Alex concluded.

"Ian," Tom said, "I don't think I've heard so much crap said in such a convincing way before."

Tom then started laughing and Ian grinned.

The three of them sat there for a while and chatted about everything from how Tom's parents were actually considering getting back together (this was apparently worse than them trying to get divorced according to Tom) to how two boys in Tom's class had walked past him in the street that day and just stared at him until they couldn't actually see him. After an hour Tom pulled his football out of his bag resulting in a game of 2 against one with Alex and Tom against Ian. When the game got so tiring and competitive Tom went and sat down and watched Alex and Ian play in what seemed to be a fight to the death. When both were thoroughly out of breath they went and slumped on the bench next to Tom. When they had finally caught their breaths they said goodbye to Tom and headed home. In the five minute journey home Ian looked over at Alex and realised for the first time since he had gotten back that Alex had actually seemed like a teenager, maybe not a normal teenager but a teenager none the less.


	16. Chapter 16

Alex had an easy sleep that evening and woke up at the ripe old time of 8 am. This was late by Alex's standards but he was happy to have had the lie in.

Alex got dressed and went downstairs only to be greeted by Ian as he walked out of the kitchen. They said their good mornings and Ian half jogged upstairs and Alex headed into the kitchen. Alex found Snake sitting at the kitchen table munching on some frosties.

"Are you having a change of diet or is sugar just your thing now?" Alex asked breaking the silence. He had noted that Snake always ate oat meal for breakfast or porridge.

"No, while you were out yesterday though, Eagle decided to try my normal breakfast food and found it wasn't his thing. Being Eagle he felt it was his duty to rid this house of what he called, a waste of creation that should not be gifted with the idea of being a food" Snake answered and then took another mouthful. Alex snorted at this.

"Is Eagle always like that?" Alex asked with a grin.

"What? Do you mean is he always an idiot or childish?" Snake responded looking at Alex with a smirk.

"Is there much difference?" Alex questioned. Snake grinned.

"I'll have to check on that. In Eagle's case he's still a five year old at mind and an idiotic five year old when given sugar" Snake answered with a laugh. Alex went serious.

"If he's so childish and you all don't seem so bad the why were you such arse holes at Brecon beacons?" he asked.

Snake put his spoon down and laid his elbows on the table and looked like he was thinking.

After a moment or two he said slowly, "I'm not sure. I think that we were annoyed at you were just put into our unit as if we had done something wrong and they wanted to play a cruel joke and humiliate us. I mean it took us years to join and we had to stay through months or even years of extensive training and you didn't even stay a fortnight. Without warning you were gone. We didn't even get any info on why you were there and so made up scenarios. Only wolf actually took it seriously though feeling that if you were from a rich family then you should suffer and fell hardship or something like that. As for Eagle. A couple of days before you came the sarge found his sugar stash after an unfortunate incident in the mess hall where he got into trouble because of his childish way. The sarge took his sugar supply and said that if Eagle continued in his childish manor at camp he would be binned. I assume he was having sugar withdrawal which kept him quiet and he was also attempting to be sensible."

Alex nodded with a small smile as if he understood.

"Sounds legit" he said.

"I'm guessing you were training for SO in truth while you were there. Did you ever have the urge to tell us the truth?" Snake questioned.

Alex thought for a moment and then answered, "Not really. If the 14 year old me suddenly got really pissed off with you and showed it and then claimed that in truth I was being trained for a mission I doubt you would have believed me and also I wouldn't be that good a spy if I always blurted out what was going on"

Snake chucked.

"Thats true," he replied, "on both accounts. We probably would have thought you were a whiny prat trying to make excuses and SO probably wouldn't use you."

"Hmmm, true, maybe I should have said the truth, that way the past two years probably wouldn't have happened." Alex answered thoughtfully causing Snake to chuckle again.

"Then again we wouldn't have found your dad and your uncle. If I had known Ian Rider was your uncle I would have cut you some slack at camp. I mean, that man gained my respect on the mission we worked together on."

"Out of curiosity, when was this mission?" Alex asked.

"Ummm, I would say about four years ago think in december..." Snake trailed off thinking.

"It wasn't possibly New Years time was it?" Alex suggested. By the look on Snakes face he was right.

"That was it. I can't remember all the details on he mission, to be honest we were given very little, anyway, we had to go in and get this information. Before we left his phone rang and he sounded-"

"Annoyed that someone was interrupting him," Alex cut in, " and then whispered frantically that he had been just walking into a meeting and had to go. He ignored all complaints that it was New Years Eve and he had promised to be home."

Alex sighed and slumped into a chair and looked at his hands. Snake studied the boy's face.

"I always wondered what that conversation had been about. When he came back he looked guilty for a few moments and then turned professional again. It is unlike a spy to show emotion, especially one so high up that it surprised us. You must have been very close." Snake said honestly.

"Obviously not close enough if he lied about what he was doing" Alex said sadly.

"Anyway," Snake continued, "once he hung up we went and did this raid and we were put in a bad situation. We had miscalculated the enemies numbers and realised that just as we went in. Ian Rider set off an extra back up signal he had been given and we went in expecting back up to arrive soon. There was a fight that somehow ended in k unit being lined up against a wall with our hands behind our head and a firing squad lining up to kill us. The enemy was taunting your uncle, he payed little attention to that but instead focused on us who were about to be killed and did the stupidest and bravest thing one man could do for us. We knew back up was close, less than two minutes away we guessed but we were sure we would be dead by then. Anyway, your uncle encouraged his captives to get closer and then he attacked. It was so quick if you blinked you would have missed it but one minute he was on his knees and the next his captor was on the ground unconscious and his gun was in Rider's hand. He then jumped in between us and the men prepare to kill us and shouted 'you wouldn't kill these fine men and leave me out of the party would you?' and then shot the man I the middle and ran off as they all shot at him making sure everyone forgot us so they weren't prepared when we knocked them unconscious and took their guns or when seconds later reinforcements of a helicopter and another unit arrived. Rider would have lived long enough for reinforcements but instead he tried to get himself killed so that we would live instead. The result, we all lived."

"Quick question," Alex said, "what happened to his leg? He said it was a sprained ankle so he had to limp but I don't believe that."

"It was two bullets. One went near his ankle but it was just a flesh wound and the other went about halfway between his ankle and his knee." Snake confirmed and then added, "It wasn't too serious."

"I always loved happy endings" Alex said unconvincingly and then added, "If you guys all seem to be fine with my dad and uncle and you seem fine with me then why does Wolf still seem pissed off by my presence?"

Snake thought for a moment.

"In all honesty," he answered, "I have no real clue. I think he believed that you although you worked for SO you never did the hard stuff or saw real pain or something like that. I don't know. You'd have to ask him. Oh and when you do, please forgive him for his screw up the other night. He's a dick but he wants to set it right and apologise. You earned his respect I think when you stood up to him but he would never admit it."

With that Snake took the last bite of his cereal and went to put his bowl in the dishwasher. Just as he was shutting the dishwasher door Wolf walked in.

"Speak of the devil" Snake said with a smirk and walked out.

Wolf walked in and noticed Alex inspecting him slightly. Wolf dropped his gaze on Alex and silently walked to see what was in the fridge. After deciding that the only edible thing one might consider as breakfast was a muller yogurt he grabbed the closest one which just happened to be toffee hoops and searched for a tea spoon.

He sat down at the table as far away from Alex as was permitted without eating on the floor.

Alex smirked. It looked as if Wolf didn't want to get eaten alive by his dad for talking to him and so was staying quiet.

"You know, my dad isn't around to kill you if you said good morning to me" Alex said breaking the silence.

Wolf stayed silent.

"Do you think I'm trying to get you to talk so I can go running off to him or Ian saying that you broke your silence thing towards me?"

Still Wolf did not speak.

"You honestly think so lowly of me?" Alex asked in a mocking hurt voice.

No response.

"What did my dad say to you again? He said you couldn't communicate with me until I'd forgiven you right? I got angry, no point holding a grudge against you, there is all possibility that we're going to have to fight together one day, might as well learn to try and get along."

Silence.

"That is my way of saying I forgive you" Alex said like he was talking to a five year old, "it means you can speak."

Wolf looked up at Alex.

"Umm thanks," Wolf said uncertainly and then added, "and sorry, about my out burst thing."

Alex just shrugged.

"Is your dad always like that?" Wolf asked before he realised how dumb he just sounded. He showed that he understood his mistake seconds later and Alex smirked.

"If I had known the man for more then about two weeks I might have been able to answer that. I suggest you ask Ian"

"Sorry." Wolf said feeling like an idiot. Alex just smirked some more.

Alex and Wolf sat in a comfortable silence until Wolf got bored and spoke up.

"What's it like having your family back, Cub?" he asked.

Alex sat thinking for a moment.

"Ben asked me the same question. It something I'll have to get used to I guess. I actually think I am getting used to it. Also, you know you can call me Alex, right?" Alex responded.

Wolf smirked and said, "Nah, you'll always be Cub in my eyes. You're the child and nephew to two men who have my respect, you're their kid, therefore you're there cub."

Alex sighed but nodded. He knew there was no way in changing that.

"I also think I speak for the rest of K unit by the way" Wolf said earning another sigh.

After breakfast Alex talked with Ian and John and explained that he had forgiven Wolf.

At 3pm everyone climbed into two cars, K unit in one and the Riders and Ben in the other. They drove to the bank and were quickly directed to Mrs Jones office. Once again Alex entered without knocking as was usual and everyone crowded into the room.

"Jones" Alex said with an expressionless face.

"Riders, Daniels, k unit." Jone greeted without looking up from whatever papers were on he desk.

Each nodded their greetings.

"You asked for us." Alex stated.

Jones looked up.

"Yes, k unit wait outside" Jones said bluntly and the four men walked out and cheetah, who was the last to leave, shut the door behind himself.

Jones directed her attention to the rest of the people in the room. She ignored Ben.

"Take a seat" she ordered. The men did as they were told.

"Since there has only been one attack on you since you have come back I think it is safe to believe that you shall not be troubled much more. We have been unable to get any information out of our... guest. K it shall stay with you a week longer and if there are no more interference you shall be sent on a mission-"

"What?!" Alex interrupted.

"You heard me Alex, I shall be sending the three of you on a mission together. You are my top spies. I feel that this missions will be quick and simple with little work on your part, just surveillance." Jones explained.

"You say that every time. One of the times you said that, Jack got killed" Alex said with disgust yet his face stayed neutral, "also, I want nothing more to do with MI6. I want another attempt at a normal life where I worry about homework not bullets."

"I agree with Alex, I want out. I don't want to do this anymore. I like being here, I don't want the thought that that may be the last goodbye to my nephew again. You've ruined his life with his supposed parents death, my death, then using him and then jack's death. I won't have his life ruined any more by this company." Ian stated calmly.

"I second that agreement. One lifetime worth of working for you is enough, now it's time to settle down with family" John said just as calmly. Alex looked at his uncle and father proudly. Maybe they could be a normal family now.

"Sorry, I can't allow that," Jones stated simply and then raised a hand to stop argument and continued, "each time one do you Rider's disappeared this company faltered. That was one of the reasons we pulled Alex back after leaving him alone. I can't just let you walk out."

"There is nothing you can use on me anymore, Jack's dead, I no longer need to be emancipated, you've taken Ben's job. Blackmail is off the table" Alex said with a humourless laugh.

"Not quite Alex," Jones said and then once again gestured not to be interrupted, "technically John and Ian are still dead, we have the ability to take away your emancipation and your money, sell the house and place you in an orphanage. John and Ian can be placed in separate asylums for posing as dead people and be considered mentally insane and if that doesn't do it for you I will make sure that Ben can never be employed anywhere ever again."

Everyone gaped at her.

"Why can't you leave me to have a normal life?" Alex said in a quiet, sad voice.

"Because you're too good to let go of." Jones explained emotionlessly.

"You can't send Alex on another mission. His wrist is still screwed up from two missions ago. Sending him on his last mission was dangerous. It needs to fix permanently!" Ben argued.

Both Ian and John looked at Alex who made an expression of 'I'll tell you later' and they didn't argue.

"It seems fine to me and he's had more then enough time to heal and enough break between his last mission." Jones countered.

"Two weeks? I admit, that's the longest you've ever given him but still, you-" Jones cut Ben off.

"I hear you were wondering the reasons that I fired you. This is the reason." Jones said coldly. Ben sat back and went silent after he snarled.

John spoke up.

"This man is just trying to protect my son." he protested.

"As that may be, I shall not be changing my offer with or without protest"

"Offer? You mean blackmail?" Ian snarled.

"Call it what you will." Jones said slipping another peppermint in her mouth.

Alex snarled, stood up and grabbed the folder he assumed was for him. It had his name on it and was next to two files named John Rider and Ian Rider. With that he stormed out shortly followed by the others each showing a snarling expression. Ben, being the last one out, slammed the door shut and followed the Riders out of the building. K unit stood up when the spies came out and quickly followed them as they stormed out of the building. The spies' car was silent for the journey home whereas k units car had whispering. They were all curious as to what had happened in there and were making up scenarios. They whispered because for some reason they feared that someone in the other car might hear them.

When they got home Alex and Ian did a bug check of the living room and when they found it was all clear Alex flopped onto the sofa and groaned.

"It's not fair" he moaned covering his face with his hands.

Ian took a seat next to him.

"I know, I guess we're just going to have to get used to it" Ian said sadly as he put an arm around his nephew and did a one arm hug.

They discussed the possibilities of trying to change Jones's mind but that idea was dropped quickly. K unit had arrived shortly after them and had listened to the discussion from the kitchen. Ben was sat in the living room silently watching.

Alex stopped talking and let John and Ian discuss the current issue while he studied Ben. After a few minute he said, "You're quiet."

Ian and John went quiet and looked over at Alex and followed his gaze to Ben.

"I am" Ben answered.

"Why?"

"I'm thinking"

About?"

"Your situation"

"And have you thought of anything useful?"

"Leave" Ben said finally.

"Wait, what?" John said cutting into the conversation.

"Leave, run away, whatever you want to call it. Just start a new life and do one thing, don't join the government again" Ben explained.

"Ben, you destroyed that option when you called in our findings" Alex said with a hint of bitterness.

"And I'm sorry about that but they needed to go to a hospital" Ben said keeping his voice steady.

"Can I ask what you're talking about?" Ian cut in.

"When we found you I wanted to not call it in. Keep you guys hidden and then when you woke up I hoped that we could leave, not come back. I would never have to work for them again and no matter how hard they looked for me they wouldn't see me because I wouldn't be wandering by myself. They would look for a teenage boy wandering around. They wouldn't be looking for two deceased employees and me" Alex explained.

"And I called it in. The other units had seen you, I trust K unit with my life. I knew they would never spill the truth of what happened during the mission but some of the others, if they thought it would get them good with the sarge or higher ups, they would spill. Also, you needed a hospital and we couldn't just creep you in anywhere. I had no choice and I'm sorry." Ben said sadly looking at his hands.

John walked over and placed a hand on Ben's shoulder.

"I know," he said, "you did the right thing, and thanks for looking after Alex when we couldn't."

"I agree with Ben. We could leave" Ian said honestly.

They all sat in silence for a few minutes considering the possibility of running away. Alex broke the silence.

"We couldn't" he said sadly, "they would punish K unit for what happened, Ben could never be reemployed, we'd have screwed up all their lives for ourselves."

There was more silence. John broke it this time.

"Why don't we think about this. We have until next Saturday before we leave for our mission. If we prepare for the mission then we can try and sort something out closer to the time." John suggested. They all nodded and headed off to bed. K unit, noticing the silence, also went up to bed.

And so it was decided that they would plan for both the mission and their escape unsure of which would actually happen.

* * *

**I said I wanted 10 reviews for the last chapter. I checked the stats thing and more than enough people read it on same day as post for an update immediately. I put the 10 review thing so I know what you think even if it's one word otherwise I don't know if you all think I'm doing a good job. I have over 70people following the story, why is it so hard to get 10 reviews?**

**Another 10 reviews for an update and please say what you think even if it's just one word**


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider or any of the characters. This applies to all previous and future chapters**

* * *

The week went by torturously fast giving the Riders little time to think. Within the blink of an eye it was Wednesday morning. Alex had asked for Tom to come around in the afternoon so no one was expecting the door bell to ring at 10am. Wolf, Snake and Ian had been debating over the best types of guns, Ben was on the phone to his mother and Alex, Eagle, Cheetah and John were playing a card game named shit head. So far Alex was winning with John close behind with only one more card then him. Eagle seemed to be holding half the pack and cheetah had five cards in his hand and didn't look like he would be rid of them anytime soon.

When the bell rang they all look up at each other in surprise and curiosity. A second later they were on their feet pulling weapons from under the settee or cupboards and heading towards the door. Alex went to the door with the others crowded in the living room prepared to pounce. Alex opened the door.

"Hello my dear boy!" Smithers cried when he saw Alex.

"Hey Smithers" Alex said with a grin.

"How are you? How's your wrist?" Smithers asked.

"I'm good," he said and then added like any annoyed teenager, "my wrist is fine."

He had hoped that Ian and John had forgotten about his wrist when they left the bank, now he knew that Smithers reminded them.

"Good good." cried the jolly fat man. Alex wondered if the others knew that he was really and short, fit, irish man underneath his fat suit.

"Come in" Alex said moving out the way so he could squeeze past.

"Thank you my boy" He said and started waddling in. Once he got past Alex he was greeted by John.

"Hello Smithers." John said with a smile.

"Ah John. I heard you were back. It's great to see you again!" Smithers exclaimed.

"And you. If I'm right, when I disappeared you had only just been promoted from junior gadgeteer to the gadget master of MI6."

"You are correct. And since then I have made thousands of gadgets. If I may say, although I hate how Blunt and then Jones use Alex, he is fun to make gadgets for." Smithers said with a grin.

"And those gadgets have saved my life one hundred times over" Alex said from behind Smithers.

"Thank you for that." John said with a smile and allowed Smithers to squeeze past him to the living room door.

"Hello in there," he greeted, "that room looks a bit crowded, maybe I there's more room in the kitchen"

So Smithers made his way to the kitchen with everyone following. He took a seat at the kitchen table and when Ian came in he stood up again.

"Ian," Smithers yelled in greeting.

"Hello Smithy" Ian said with a grin.

"Smithy?" came Alex's voice.

"Unfortunately it's a name your uncle seems to have grown attached to after calling me it once. And since I'm not fond of the name he finds it more appealing to continue." Smithers explained making Alex and Ian laugh.

"You know you love it Smithy. How are you anyway? How have you been? Oh and have you hooked up with that Cloud lady from the CIA?" Ian asked intrigued.

"I'm good thank you. Been spending most my life for the past two years making gadgets for this young lad," Smithers said pointing at Alex, "which is, if I may say, a great challenge. And no I haven't hooked up with that cloud lady from the CIA. We are just friends who keep in touch."

Everyone had walked in and Ian, John, Alex and Ben were seated around the table and k unit stood around it.

"Ah Ben, good to see you." Smithers greeted, "You looked troubled. Anything the matter?"

"Hey Smithers, no its all good thanks" Ben responded quietly. Alex knew Ben best and knew he was lying. It was plain to see that he was troubled but no one pestered him.

"Anyway, you might have guessed why I was here. Jones asked me to come by and give you the gift of blowing up stuff with gadgets... Although, she didn't put it quite like that." that earned a few laughs.

"Please tell me Jones still permits me to carry a gun." Alex almost pleaded.

"Don't worry my boy, even with your new partners I have the perfect weapons for you" Smithers said happily.

K unit looked cautiously at each other. This kid is practically begging for a gun?

"All right. I will put all the gadgets on the table, you choose what you want." Smithers said.

The Riders nodded in agreement, each eager to get the best gadgets.

"I have the usual for Alex, I hear you're running out of that zit cream I keep giving you?"

Alex sighed.

"Not my fault everyone has metal for their prison doors." he complained.

"As that may be, here is a fresh tube. It's slightly bigger then the last packet. Try not to use it up so quickly. I also came up with a cold sore cream which will burn anyone without the similar DNA as you so this is open to all Riders to take." Smithers announced.

"I told you you didn't need to finish the cream last time" Ben said to Alex.

"Well now I have a new tube so there's nothing to worry about." Alex said.

"Sorry but what does the zit cream do?" Ian asked confused.

"Ah yes, I forgot that you don't know. It eats through metal but is harmless to human skin" Smithers explained.

"It's really cool when you see it working and if someone's on the other side of the door they're too surprised by what's happening to know you're escaping." Alex said with a grin.

"It makes them easier to knock out" Ben added.

"Let's move on," Smithers suggested, "alright, up next it have two iPods. One is an iPod touch and the other is just an older nano iPod. You can store music on them and there are a couple of games, it is possible to get apps on them as well or at least the touch one. These can fuzz up any security camera in the world. Also, I have installed a camera in the nano iPod, the touch already has one, if one of you takes a picture, the other one automatically receives it and you can send small messages."

"I put dibs on the touch!" Ian cried childishly. Alex laughed.

"I'm so ancient I probably won't know how to use a nano iPod." John explained.

"Dad, take it. I have an iPod I forgot to give back from a few missions ago with similar features but connected to Ben's iPod except my one can spread computer viruses" Alex said eagerly.

"That's right. I remember that one. Ben gave his back but I never got yours, bring it down and I'll connect it to their ones as well." Smithers suggested and Alex got up and ran to his room.

"Unlike Alex I'm a good boy and hand back my gadgets" Ben said with mocking innocence.

"True but for this mission I shall be giving it back. You never know, you could be the only chance of survival for the Riders. Gosh, that is a strange thought. More than just Alex. Anyway back to business." Alex ran back in the room and took his seat, "I have two large suitcases in my car and two medium. They can store things in the usual area. You could put a glass vase in the case and push it down the stairs and it won't be affected. Also, the plastic handles can detach and becomes a gun."

"I call one of the large ones!" Alex cried.

Ian laughed.

"No," he taunted, "the big ones are for grown ups. Alex can have an ickle one because he's an ickle wickle boy."

Alex scowled at Ian which caused Ben and John to laugh and Ian to grin.

"Wait until I have said it all and then you can comment." Smithers said, "Alright, up next I have a set of glasses for you all. They work similar to the iPods in which what one person can see, so can the others. There are sunglasses and reading glasses so you have a choice and then there are those see in the dark sunglasses Ben and Alex have. You tap the side of the glasses, the right side, and that makes the right lens turn into a webcam. It shows the others what you see and sends it to all other active glasses. So if four glasses were activated and each of you wanted to show something to the other than each person would have three tiny screens on their right lens showing them what everyone else sees and then you see what you're recording in the left lens."

Alex looked like a little boy excited for Christmas. For some reason getting gadgets always made him happy.

"The next ones were designed for a teenager. They're trainers but they have knives in the toe part. To activate the knives you have to hit the pack of the shoe, it doesn't matter how, and then two knives come out of the front. They don't show up when you go through airport security so you can take them everywhere-"

"Awesome" Alex said.

"-and finally I have just two more things. One is a camera. I've given you two. Your camera can take ordinary pictures but I don't suggest putting flash on. Flash blinds whoever can see it unless you're behind the camera, it blinds them for 10 seconds. Its great for diversions. And finally I give you a rucksack. I wanted to make jet packs but none of the material I used to hide it stayed intact. Instead, I give you the helium bag. If you grip the straps at the top and hold them, the longer you hold the more helium is pumped in, then you can start to float. It is enough to hold two adults. To release you squeeze the bottom of the straps. You only have one of those. I've given you helium refills incase you run out but the helium should fill the bag and then fill back into the cans but it is possible to run out. You can fill the bag and nothing will be seen in a scan that has to do with helium or any of that sort of thing."

"Once again Smithers, you've done a great job." Alex said.

"Why don't you lot come and give me a hand unloading." Smithers suggested. Everyone stood up and piled out of the kitchen.

Ben was about to leave when Alex stopped him.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked.

"Sorry, what?" Ben asked. He was a spy, he was good at lying but no one could lie to Alex.

"What did your mum say? I swear you're only close or even on talking terms with your sister." Alex said.

"My sister died in hospital. She was in a cycling accident" Ben's voice started to crack and he went silent not trusting himself to speak anymore.

Alex could tell Ben wanted to break down right there and then but had enough dignity not to.

"Go upstairs." Alex ordered softly. Ben made no objections and just walked as fast as he could upstairs which wasn't very fast. Alex could sense that his legs wanted to give way.

Alex went to the bottom of the stairs and called up just before Ben disappeared around the corner.

"Do you want me to tell the others?" Alex asked.

Ben turned around and Alex saw a few tears already soaking Ben's cheek.

"Sure" he croaked and kept walking.

"Where's he going?" Ian asked as he lifted a large suitcase into the house.

"I'll explain in a minute" Alex said quietly and went to unpack the car. When he got there everyone had taken everything and so he followed the others into the house where they laid it on the kitchen table apart from the suitcases.

"Hey, where's Fox?" Eagle asked. Alex sighed, he had to tell them.

"His sister just died in hospital and he wants some time alone." he said sadly.

The room went quiet and everyone stopped what they were doing for the moment.

"I'm so sorry to hear that." John said softly.

"Wasn't he only connected to his sister in his family?" Snake asked sadly.

Alex nodded.

Everyone unpacked in silence and took a seat at the table.

Smithers cleared his throat to break the silence and spoke up.

"Right, you may choose what gadgets are for you. Try not to break anything and good luck." with that he stood up.

"Good bye" he added almost sadly and showed himself to the front door. Alex looked at the table. There was enough for four people he realised. He also noted something else.

He got up and ran to the door just as it slammed shut. Alex reached it quickly and pulled it open just as Smithers was unlocking his car.

"Wait!" he cried. Smithers stopped and looked up and Alex ran closer.

"Hang on," he continued, "you've given us things for four people, no way to communicate and call for back up or tracking devices. Also, you mentioned scanners like at airports. We aren't going through airport control."

"Goodbye Alex" Smithers said sadly and pulled the boy in for a hug. In the moments that the great Alex Rider was actually stunned, Smithers climbed in his car and drove off.

* * *

**sorry about the little rant previously. I should have put to up this morning but went to see the dark knight rises. EPIC!**

**Anyway, I haven't written the next chapter fully but will be sending part of what I have written to those who review so review.**

**Please tell me if you like, love, hate or want to destroy/incinerate/kill this story**


	18. Chapter 18

**I'm so sorry about how long this chapter took, I became lazy, also read lord of the rings and now am into lotr stories so if you know any good ones please say!**

**I don't own any of Alex rider**

* * *

Wolf and Cheetah were putting the dishes away after lunch. It was their turn since Ian had cooked, Alex and John had claimed they help, in truth they had sat there complaining about how long it was taking, Eagle had laid the table and Snake had served up. After lunch they had put their plates in the dishwasher leaving Ben, Wolf and Cheetah to wash and dry up. After a bit of shouting and fighting Ben ended up doing the washing, wolf dried and Cheetah put away. Ben had finished quickly and ran off to go to his/Alex's room while Alex, John, Ian, snake and Eagle debated football. By debating it meant lots of shouting and more arguing while playing cards.

The doorbell rang. Alex leaped up and charged to the door leaving the others stunned in the process. He waited 5 seconds until he was sure that everyone was ready for any attack. He saw Ben at the top of the stairs with one hand behind his back holding his gun.

Alex opened the door.

"Alex!" Tom cried, "Good to see you again!"

"Hey Tom, how are you?" Alex asked.

"Great man, great. Hey, you remember the boys who broke into your house on the weekend? Harry came up to me and asked whether I knew if he had gone out and gotten drunk at the weekend. I pretended like I had no clue what he was going on about. It freaked him out so much!" Tom cried with a grin. Alex laughed.

"Well done Tom, if you can fool Harry then there might be a job for you in espionage after all." Alex said.

"Was that sarcasm?" Tom asked seriously.

"Never Tom, the idea of using sarcasm on you is ridiculous!" Alex cried out sarcastically.

Tom humphed making Alex laugh.

"Hey Tom!" Ben cried from upstairs.

"Oh hi Ben. How are you?" Tom cried from the door.

"I'm fine thanks" he lied, "I have to go finish something off."

Alex knew it was just an excuse to leave. Tom waved him off.

"You wanna invite me in?" Tom asked.

"Nah, I'm pretty content standing here." Alex answered with mocking honesty.

"ha ha" Tom said slowly and then barged past.

"You know it's rude to barge into other people's houses?" Alex asked.

"If I remember correctly this was more like my home then my real home, I stayed here more often then I did there." Tom stated.

"Yeah, well, your parents are no longer getting a divorce and you haven't been over in a year practically." Alex pointed out.

"Cool! Does that mean you can't use the 'you practically live here' excuse and will treat me like a guest?" Tom said excitedly and then ordered, "get me a drink!"

Alex looked thoughtful for a moment.

"You know where the drinks are, off you go." Alex said. Tom slumped in misery.

"Come to the living room." Alex suggested and led the way.

Alex metres the living room to meet two shocked SAS men, Ian and John.

"The weapons can go away you know." Alex smirked. Wolf and Cheetah walked in from the kitchen.

"Cub! Acting like a teenager?!" Snake cried in a mockingly shocked voice.

"Yeah, I have this awesome effect on him that I can make him young again in mind and soul." Tom joked.

"No, Tom's mind is so immature that I have to speak in simple words or he doesn't understand." Alex said with a grin.

John stepped in front of the group to meet Tom.

"You must be Tom" he said holding out a hand, "I've heard quite a bit about you."

Tom looked at the man in awe. It took him a few seconds to catch his voice again.

"You must be mister Rider. When Alex said his dad was alive I didn't really believe him even if his uncle came back from supposed dead." Tom said causing Alex to grin and Ian to look mockingly annoyed.

"Call me John, and Alex, what do you find so funny?" John asked.

"Me and Ian placed a bet after we left Tom. I bet that he didn't believe that I was telling the truth and Ian bet that Tom was a smart boy and probably guessed I was. Now I win!" Alex said as he put his hand out to receive the money. Jones had opened the accounts back up for Ian and had given John money in advance for the next mission and more to get him started again.

"How much was the bet?" Tom asked curiously.

"£25" Alex said happily as Ian ungraciously smacked twenty five pounds into Alex's greedy hand.

"Since I am the one that technically let you win, I want half!" Tom cried.

"Get lost" Alex cried with a humourless laugh.

"Fine, the fiver, that way you get twenty" Tom argued.

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

This carried on for about a minute and everyone around them sat down and watched the argument.

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Eagle, if you dare cheat I will kill you"

Everyone looked over at Alex in confusion and then looked to where he was looking and there they saw Eagle sat on the floor by the coffee table covered in cards about to look at his three cards that he couldn't see.

"Darn super spies!" he cried grumpily. Everyone laughed and Wolf threw a pillow at him.

"I know exactly how you feel" Tom said sympathetically while putting his hand on his heart and nodding.

Alex gave a mocking glare at Tom which caused the boy to laugh. Alex also slowly pocketed the money from Ian.

"What had we just been arguing about?" Tom asked dumbfounded.

"It was whether or not Eagle was more immature than you." Alex replied seriously. Ian coughed to hide a laugh.

"Eagle cannot be more immature than me, it's not possible!" Tom complained.

"He is more childish"

"He's older than me"

"Age doesn't define maturity"

"He's not"

"He is"

"He's not"

"He is"

"He's not"

"He is"

"He's not"

"He is"

"Ok shut up!" Wolf cried putting his hands over his ears.

Alex and Tom both grinned.

"Fine." said Alex letting out a large sigh. "Tom, this is Wolf" he gestured to wolf and then the others as he said their names, "Eagle, Snake and Cheetah."

"Hi" Tom replied awkwardly. Tom then looked over the men again and said, "I thought you only trained with 4 people at Hell and Ben was one of them?"

"Yeah, when Ben joined '6 they needed another person" Alex explained.

"So you're the men who were such dicks to Alex then?" Tom asked curiously. The men look around nervously. Tom then looked at the one called Wolf and grinned, "And you're the one Alex kicked out of a plane?" Tom turned to Alex, "How? The man's massive - no offence" he added quickly.

"Because I'm just that cool." Alex said with a grin causing Wolf to humph.

Alex invited Tom to come and join the game and work with Eagle who was sorely losing. Twenty minutes later Tom excused himself for the bathroom and ran upstairs. The spies all heard him go to kitchen when he was done due to good hearing. When Tom came back he looked confused. Alex looked up at him and wondered what was wrong.

"Tom?" Alex asked curiously.

"Al, why the hell is there a whole load of stuff in the kitchen that looks distinctly like stuff that Mr Smithers would give you?" Tom asked.

Alex just looked down and didn't reply.

Tom slumped onto the floor.

"And hear I thought you were leaving MI6" Tom muttered bitterly.

"It's not my fault!" Alex snapped, "When did I ever get a choice in this?"

"I thought Jack was gone, what else could they use?" Tom replied.

"They will send us to mental asylums for impersonating dead people and take away all money we have and send Alex to an orphanage." John said in a monotone voice. He had realised Alex's discomfort and annoyance and stepped in.

"Oh crap man, sorry." Tom mumbled, "So Blunt is still heartless?"

"Not Blunt, Jones." Alex explained.

"Wait, peppermint lady, I thought you said that there were signs that a heart may exist within her!" Tom cried.

"Nah, if there were any signs they all turned to stone" Alex said with a shrug.

"Well you guys have to leave! I mean surely you can run away from this?" Tom asked.

"How though, we've already thought about it. If we leave K unit will be punished?" Ian put in.

"We don't care." Wolf said bluntly, "We can handle ourselves, you should start a new life."

"You don't understand, if we leave '6 will hunt us down. You will be tortured until you give our location even if you don't know it. You may never get employed anywhere ever again" John said darkly.

"We can't do that, it would be selfish" Alex said simply.

"Why do you have to be a family of bloody patriots and selfless goody goodies?" Tom asked with an exaggerated sigh causing all the Riders to give almost identical smirks. Ben came down at that point.

"Anything interesting happening?" Ben asked.

"Nah, just had a discussion on who was more immature Tom or Eagle -"

"Tom" Ben cut in.

"- and now we're discussing and failing at planning an escape for the Riders." Snake explained.

"Why not cause an accident in which you three 'die' and the rest of us survive?" Eagle put in.

"Unfortunately the dying things got a bit old" Alex explained.

The rest of the afternoon rushed by into the evening with no further progress. Finally Tom had to go home leaving the house in thoughtful silence behind him. No one spoke for the rest of the evening.

* * *

**Please review, was it good, bad, rubbish, brilliant, sucky, dumb?**

**I think I responded to all signed in reviews with a paragraph from this chapter so reviews mean a preview :D**


	19. Chapter 19

It was Friday night and Ian, John and Alex seemed miserable. They had made no progress on running away since Tom had come over and although Ben wanted to go with them, either on the mission or on a plane far away from there, neither were happening. All four of them sat sulking as the SAS men watched.

At around dinner time Wolf got tired of watching.

"Right, enough moping, we're having take away for dinner and we're gonna say goodbye because we leave tomorrow!" he ordered.

The Riders and Ben looked at one another and shrugged and then back at Wolf with a nod.

After another vote between pizza and Chinese they picked pizza because they took pity on Eagle.

Everyone sat around the table and waited. K unit volunteered to pay for the food and no one objected, other than maybe John who wanted to contribute but finally gave up asking after a while.

Ian sat there telling everyone the humiliating moments of Alex growing up including when he went skiing for the fifth time of his life when he was 8 and he caught sight of this pretty girl. Alex had shot upstairs to avoid humiliation.

"... So he spotted her a second time when we got to the top of one of the steeper hills" Ian said with a grin, "and he had all his gear on and started edging down the slope." Ian started adding in movements to go with the story such making himself more feminine and raising he pitch of his voice, "As he went down he realised her blushing and giggling and he smiled at her pretty little face and went straight into a tree" Ian burst out laughing followed by everyone else.

"Ouch" Cheetah said with a cringe.

"He didn't have any broken bones," Ian continued and then realised that his voice was still high. He gave a grunt and carried on normally, "but he had tons of scratches on his face and if you count losing teeth as broken bones then actually he did. Thankfully the two that fell out were wobbly baby teeth. The best part of it was that when he saw her again when I was cleaning up all the scratches in the hotel restaurant he smiled at her and blood started oozing through the gaps and she screamed and ran away!"

This received some 'aww's as well as laughter.

"He was miserable for the rest of the day so the tooth fairy was nice and gave him a fiver" Ian grinned, this made John laugh. At least some of Alex's childhood was an actual childhood.

In Alex's room Alex sat lying on his back inspecting his small gadgets one by one and moving them from one side of him to the other once he'd looked at them. Currently he was holding the 'zit cream' and remembering all the wonders it had done for him and all the times he had lived because of it. He could hear the laughter going on below him and cringed to think what embarrassing tale Ian had moved onto. He wondered what sort of looks and comments he would encounter when he finally went downstairs.

The doorbell rang and Alex heard movement downstairs. The pizza had taken ages to come! Alex jumped off his bed and grabbed his gun and went to the stairs. Wolf went to he door and looked back to see everyone in position. He looked at Alex last he gave a small nod to show he was ready. Wolf opened the door to a woman. She had a slim build and was medium height. She had a cap on so Alex couldn't actually see her face but Wolf could. She handed the pizza over and received her money with tip. Alex saw a red line on the uniform making which looked slightly out of place but didn't question it. He had no idea what colours went with which.

Wolf took the pizzas and shut the door with his foot as he walked back into the kitchen. Alex ran downstairs and followed them into the kitchen. Alex realised he was still holding the 'zit cream' and put it in his pocket and then took his small margarita pizza while the others dug into theirs. Wolf had hawaiian, Ian, cheetah and Ben had a meaty one with four different meats, Eagle had pepperoni and John had four cheeses. Each had either large or medium while Alex was content with his small. The others had gotten used to Alex occasionally eating little or skipping meals all together and so paid no heed as he slowly gnawed at his first piece while they all gobbled theirs up.

"So Alex, I hear the tooth fairy has a soft spot for you" Wolf grinned. Alex glared at Ian who laughed.

"At least the female species, however mythical they are, have taken an interest in me. That's more than you can say!" Alex replied

"Hey, I've had plenty if girls!" wolf cried.

"And they all dumped you." Eagle added helpfully earning a hard kick under the table. Eagle let out a yelp of pain and jumped slightly causing the table to wobble.

Ian let out a stifled yawn.

"Tired?" Alex questioned innocently. As soon as he said that Wolf and John yawned followed seconds by Snake. Eagle covered his yawn with a burp causing a strange mixture of noises.

"Yawning is definitely contagious" Ben said starting another round of yawns. Alex felt increasingly tired but obviously not as much as the others.

"Something's wrong!" he said trying to stifle a yawn.

"I kno-" John started only to be cut off as his head flopped into the last slice of his pizza. Wolf followed suit into his empty box followed by K unit and Ben. Alex could see Ian trying desperately to fight against whatever was in his system.

"Run Alex!" he said in a strained voice as sleep kept pulling at him, "Hide!"

Ian's head slammed down on the table. Alex felt a strong wave of tiredness but fought it. He turned to cheetah who was sitting next to him and started to shake him into existence. It didn't work. He looked across the table trying to find something to wake himself up. He was finding it harder and harder to concentrate. The only things on the table apart from the cardboard boxes were a few beers in front of k unit, a 2 litre bottle of coke in the middle of the table and a jug of water at the other side. He stood up and using the support of the chairs around him he moved towards the jug of water. He hadn't had as much as the others and had had a smaller portion so the drug was taking longer to affect him, that didn't mean staying awake was easy.

Alex heard a knock at the door and loud voices outside. He knew he had to get to the water quickly. When someone knocked again he knew he needed to hurry up. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he reached the other end of the table and grabbed the water jug and splashed himself. The water was cold and refreshing and Alex felt the tiredness ease off him. He heard the people at the door fiddling with the lock and quickly thought of a way of escape. He then realised that the others were more drug induced and could take longer to wake up. He came up with a plan. He had used all the water on himself and so picked up two beer bottles near him and tipped them on Ian and John who were sitting next to each other. He saw the men begin to stir slightly and heard something in the door click and quickly whispered, "Pretend to be asleep" hoping they heard and collapsed on the floor. The intruders entered the living room Alex guessed and used the precious seconds he had until they came into the kitchen and tried to wipe the water from his face. He heard the footsteps heading in his direction and went floppy again.

"Move them and tie them to their chairs!" commanded a voice.

Seconds later Alex heard the scraping of chairs and soon felt his limp body being lifted off the floor and shoved into a chair. Alex then felt the cold steel of handcuffs circling his wrist. He made a slight movement to check how tight the chains were and realised that he didn't have the same cuffs connecting his wrists. The intruders had chained one cuff to one person to another person connecting each of them.

"Wake this one up!" a female voice commanded. Alex had a sneaking suspicion she was talking about him. This was confirmed when pain rippled through his cheek as a hand smacked him round the face.

Alex jerked and opened his eyes. In front of Alex stood a slender Asian woman wearing a pizza delivery outfit.

"Ms Binnag, how nice to see you again" Alex said sarcastically. Alex was looking at the ex professor of botany from Malagosto.

"Alex, always a pleasure" she replied smoothly.

Alex looked around. Due to how his hands were positioned behind his back he found it difficult to turn very far but still saw that his dad was next to him on his left with Wolf on his right and John had Ian to his left. Alex then inspected the people in front of him and saw that with the plant expert were two men. He didn't really know them but guessed they were connected with SCORPIA or whatever cult Eijit was in.

"I would ask what you're doing here but I can't really be bothered with a long and boring description on a plan, an elaborate one I'm sure, to kill me painfully and brutally and so on and so forth" Alex said with a yawn. In truth he was just distracting them. While he had been speaking he had slowly moved his hand to hold his dads. He gave a light squeeze and waited nervously for a response. Seconds later he received a light squeeze in response.

"Don't worry Alex; I'll spare you the drama. We plan to kill you quickly actually. We've realised that whenever someone has tried to do that to you, you've escaped." Eijit explained lightly.

"Well, it is one of my many talents. One you lot taught me actually." Alex said offhandedly. Although Alex seemed calm his mind was racing with escape techniques until he remembered the tube of Zit cream in his back pocket.

"So glad to see you've been practising your school work in your spare time. I'm about to send you to see most of your teachers in a moment. They're dying to see you again. I think they have a punishment all set up for you." Eijit said with a light laugh.

"It's not writing lines is it? I hate doing that!" Alex groaned like a normal teenager. He tried to silently move his hand to his back pocket but realised that with all the chains colliding it made a noise so tried to purposefully adjust himself to make lots of noise grab the cream at the same time.

It worked!

"Don't worry," Eijit said, "I'm sure they'll come up with something much more... creative."

She gave a sinister grin. At the same time, Alex put the bottom of the tube in John's hand and started twisting the lid off.

"Just wondering, why am I still here if you plan to not delay my death or something?" Alex asked out of stalling and genuine curiosity.

"Simple, I'm waiting for the others to wake up." Eijit said with a shrug.

Alex gave a nod of understanding and felt a small tug as John moved his hand to try and get an easier position to put the cream on the chains. All they needed now was a small distraction so that the hiss off cream eating through metal wouldn't be heard.

"Why don't you wake them up then?" Alex asked.

"I'm trying to think of a painful way to do it." Was the response.

"I have an idea. I owe Ben for putting me in a certain situation in which boiling water was dumped on my hand. I had to get it re skinned and everything because Jones wanted me in the field again ASAP. If we're about to die can you please do me this little favour and dump it on his head?" Alex begged.

Eijit stood there contemplating his suggestion and then gave a nod and ordered one of her goons to go and turn on the kettle by the counter.

The water started boiling and Alex could hear a quiet hiss as John started emptying the tube.

Ben, who had been supported only by the chains connecting him to Eagle and Cheetah, fell face first onto the floor the moment his chains broke. He let out a groan. John, Ian and Alex jumped up when they knew that Ben had given them away.

"Ah, so the Riders are finally awake." Eijit said calmly motioning for her goons to attack.

John punched one of the men on the chin sending him flying. The man was dead before he hit the ground from a broken neck. Ian distracted the man with punches which were dodged while Alex came up from behind and knocked the man unconscious. All three turned to Eijit who was now showing small signs of panic.

"Eijit, how nice to see you again, I here you taught my son. Was he good?" John asked politely as they surrounded the woman.

"Yes, a real star pupil. Just like his father in skill. When he first joined he actually believed in becoming an agent for us though unlike you I hear." Eijit said. Both Ian and John glanced at Alex giving Eijit the second she needed to push past Ian and run for the door. Alex ran to the counter, grabbed a knife and threw it. It hit the woman right between the shoulder blades.

Alex then went back to Ian and John.

"My guess is that there is a dead pizza delivery person somewhere nearby, our food was drugged and they sent everyone to sleep. Because I had eaten less the drug wasn't as bad for me. The next part, you may not know, I splashed water on my face and dumped beer on you two." Alex said casually like he didn't just murder a scared woman. That still scared Ian slightly and unnerved John.

"Probably. And I remember being splashed with something. Next I heard you mumble something like be asleep" Alex gave a nod, "and then someone came in and we were being moved and I became more and more awake as time passed." John explained. Ian told a similar tale.

"Two questions before we help the others" Ian said, "one, Alex, what did you mean about having boiling water put on your hand?"

"That was two missions ago. Hurt like hell, I still blame Ben-"

"It was not my fault!" cried Ben from the floor with a squashed nose,

"Because it's fun to blame him." Alex finished.

"I thought all this mention of your hand was just when we were in the hospital but I had my suspicions" Ian said cautiously.

"Next." Alex promted.

"What did she mean by you going to SCORPIA and believing what you were learning?" John asked as if he could read Ian's mind.

"I thought you read my file" Alex said.

"Yeah but the SCORPIA mission was a bit hazy. They didn't actually explain anything until you went in undercover." Ian said.

"Ok, well, Yassen died and told me to go to SCORPIA and '_find my destiny''" _Alex said in quote marks, "So when I went on a trip to Italy I found them. I joined, got assigned to kill Jones and got caught by '6, was told that they were using me and changed sides again. Later, after the entire mission, I was told that you were a double agent." Alex explained.

Ian and John just stood there confused. They were about to say something until Ben cried out, "It's nice and all that you can talk but can someone help me!" with his squashed nose voice.

Alex walked off and helped the man up. He had a bloody nose that looked broken. The others were testing their eye sight by blinking. Alex hadn't been aware of them waking up.

"Hold still" Alex commanded.

Ben looked at Alex with worried eyes and then Alex reset the broken nose causing Ben to cry out in pain.

John and Ian went around checking the others and Alex got a wet paper towel and a bag of ice to clean the blood and stop the swelling.

Alex saw the unconscious man start to stir.

He left Ben to clear the rest up.

The man blinked and Alex held him against the wall by his shirt.

"Is there anyone else with you?" he asked menacingly.

"No-o" the man whimpered. He was new and this was his first mission. He didn't want to die. He was scared.

"Listen up. If you want to live you go back to your bosses and say you killed us-" Alex took the man's gun from his waist band and smeared it with the blood on his hand – Ben's blood – then dropped a small amount of blood on the man's jacket. He then gave himself a small cut and smeared it on the man's shirt. He also got blood from John and Ian.

"- and I want you to tell MI6 we're dead. I want you to make the most realistic performance that you can. You shot us after we killed the others." Alex explained.

"Why would I help you?" the man cried trying to look brave.

"Because if you go back alive you will die by the hands of your bosses for failing. Here you get to live and you've killed three of SCORPIA's worst enemies and an extra spy who helped take them down" Alex knew that Ben would be annoyed by the comment but hid his smirk, "you'll be promoted, I'm sure." Alex finished.

The man nodded so Alex let him down. The man jumped up and ran off. Seconds later they heard a van driving off.

"Right, now what do we do?" asked Eagle.

"Now, we pack" Alex said looking at his family and Ben.

Each ran upstairs and grabbed their things; they stuffed clothes and toiletries into bags that Smithers had given them and put any extra gadgets in their pockets. They also went around collecting any money or valuables they could store and later sell. Ian, John and Alex had each been slowly emptying their banks over the past weeks in case they got a chance to leave. Ben being Ben kept more than enough stuffed in jars around the place or in his wallet. He didn't trust banks.

Within five minutes they were dragging bags downstairs trying to avoid making any signs of running away. They had all changed into clothes that they would never normally wear, things that changed the way they looked such as baggy shirts to make them look fatter or things too big or too small to make them look a different height. Ben had also cleaned up the blood and hidden his bloody shirt in a plastic bag in his suit case. They all had hats of some sort.

K unit sat in the kitchen waiting.

"What do we do then?" Snake asked.

"In half an hour, phone MI6 and say what happened up to the point of us being drugged. Then say that when you woke up this was how the place looked and we were gone. You aren't sure what happened but you feel horrible that anything like this could have happened on your watch." John explained.

K unit nodded.

"I guess this is bye then" Alex said awkwardly.

"Yeah I guess it is." Replied Snake.

"Good luck!" Wolf said as he shook their hands goodbye.

"Thanks for looking out for us." Ian replied.

"You seemed to have done a better job at looking out for yourselves then we did" Cheetah said with a grin.

Alex gave a shrug in mocking amusement.

"Nice to meet you Cub" Cheetah said shaking his hand.

"And you Cheetah." Alex replied.

"Take care Cub. And I'm sorry for being such a dick when we first met. I respect you and so does everyone here" Wolf said as he beckoned to K unit. The men all stood to attention and saluted the Riders and Ben. They returned the salute and walked out leaving K unit to make a phone call half an hour later.

**And that's the end of the chapter, sorry for abandoning you. I have the excuse of laziness, not being able to write and personal issues that I will never get over until I die (that's not an exaggeration, it's what the Dr said). My two older brothers have also abandoned me to go to uni and so I feel alone and not wanting to write. Well, excuses over, review and cheer a depressed miserable git up :/**


	20. Chapter 20

**Sorry for not updating. I'm in a good mood, I've just had a brilliant day celebrating my birthday and decided to get this finished to get a feel of accomplishment with that joy as well :D**

**Enjoy :D**

**I don't own Alex Rider or any of the characters!**

* * *

Alex and Ian walked for several miles around London until they arrived at Clapham Junction train station. Alex had found four credit cards hidden in a secret compartment Smithers must have added along with fake ID, passports and for the adults, driving licences. They guessed the '6 didn't know these existed and they checked how much money was on the card. There was over £1000 shared between them but to be on the safe side, they added a little more money to them. After that Alex and Ian had walked away from Chelsea, found an all night internet cafe and booked tickets to China via the credit card. They were going via Clapham Junction to get to Heathrow airport. In China they would travel for a few days and then go to an undecided country and then make their way to Hawaii.

Ben and John went to a hotel on the outskirts of and were planning on going to Gatwick for the first flight to Spain. From there they would travel Europe for about four days and then, from whichever country they were in, they would go to the nearest airport and travel to Hawaii.

The plan was to meet up in a hotel in Hawaii in a week.

Alex finally settled in his seat as everyone boarded. He had a pair of Smithers reading glasses on. At the hotel outside of London, Ben was watching through his pair of sunglasses to see if there were any MI6 operatives about. Just because Alex was well know, didn't mean that he knew other operatives. His orders came straight from the top. Ben, on the other hand, had been around the office and gotten to know some of the others about. So far it was all clear.

"You ok Danny?" Ian asked as he watched his nephew using his new name.

"I'm fine Sam" Alex replied as he looked out the window. He didn't think he could ever get used to calling Ian that or called Ben, Simon. What made him laugh most was his day's new name, Hank. Smithers must have been having a ball when he was coming up with these names! Simon Button sounded alright by Hank Button was just weird.

"It's all going to be alright." Ian reassured, seeing through Alex's mask. Alex just nodded and shut his eyes and started to doze off.

* * *

In the hotel, Ben and John were getting ready for bed. Each had a weapon tucked under their pillow and were climbing into their beds. The lamp on the small table between their bed was the only light in the room. It was covered in dust and so the light didn't reach the corners of the room which were covered in spider webs.

"You seem quiet" Ben commented. He wasn't ready to go to sleep yet.

"You're one to talk." Replied John.

"Do you think SCORPIA will buy it?" Ben asked.

"Hopefully. I suspect they're so desperate they'll accept any lie. Now what's really on your mind?" John asked firmly looking at Ben.

Ben sighed.

"I'm just worried. Will this work? Are Al - Danny and Sam going to be ok? Are you..." Ben paused wondering throw to say the next thing, "Are you really accepting me into your family and are you comfortable with the idea or are you just accepting me because Danny does?"

Ben looked at his hands feeling awkward and stupid for asking.

John had four fingers up and he counted the questions off his fingers.

"This will work. If someone's on to us we'll change course. Dan and Sam will be fine. They're both professionals and Sam won't let anything happen. Yes I accept you into the family. I first accepted you in because Danny trusted you, then I respected you because you stood up for him and I learnt how you looked after him. Then I accepted you because you and Dan act like brothers and you feel like part of the family. If your Alex's brother then you're my son!" John clarified in a serious voice. Ben looked up from his hand and look at John and smiled. John gave a warm and fatherly smile back and reached across the bedside table to give Ben a supportive squeeze on his shoulder.

"Now, being your father, go to sleep!" John ordered. Ben gave a light laugh and snuggled into the cheap hotel bed. John gave a small smirk and switched off the light before snuggling into his own bed.

* * *

Everything was fine for the next week. Ian and Alex arrived in Hawaii at midnight. Even though it was dark it was still incredibly warm outside. They looked around and booked into the nearest hotel. None of them were short on money. Ian and Alex had always lived modestly considering Ian's large income and since Alex hadn't touched any of the money it had sat there gaining interest. Alex had also been paid for his more recent jobs after they pulled him back into the world of espionage and was quite wealthy. John had money from '6 who paid him in advance for his first job back and some 'pocket money' as well.

Alex walked into their shared room and saw a large double bed on one side of the room and a single bed on the other side. Ian entered the room and it was as if a trigger had been pulled. Both males charged to the double bed and jumped on it, only, Alex did it with his arms spread out knocking Ian off. Alex laughed in victory as he felt his prize, the double bed. Ian stood up grumbling and wandered back to the door to pull their bags further into the room and shut the door.

"You looking forwards to seeing the others tomorrow?" Ian asked after checking for bugs. They suspected their might be some to catch out thieves but they found nothing.

"Yeah, it's weird not seeing Ben in a week. And now I've gotten used to having you and dad around it's just strange." Alex said.

"I know what you mean." Ian said honestly as he tested the springs on his bed.

"I don't think we'll be interrupted by anyone if they found us." Alex contemplated lying on his bed, "Even if they guess we're not dead, they know we don't want to be involved anymore and they would just loose people sending them after us."

Ian thought for a moment before grunting in agreement.

* * *

Ben and John we're on a plane flying from New York to Hawaii. Ben struggled to get comfortable as he tried to drift off sleep.

"What's wrong?" John asked with his eyes shut.

"Just nervous seeing everyone again." Ben said honestly.

"We've spoken to them each day on the iPods." John replied.

"And, we still haven't seen them in a week." Ben pushed.

"I know, once we get there, it will be fine." John reassured.

Ben accepted that answer and fell asleep.

* * *

At midday Alex and Ian checked into the hotel.

Within an hour John and Ben were reunited with the others and they went out for lunch and learnt about each others journey in detail.

They got back late and sat in silence on their beds.

Finally, Alex asked the question on each of their minds.

"What now?"

After a moment of contemplation, John replied, "Now, we get on with our lives."

END

* * *

**I know, a cheesy end but an end it was. Tell me what you thought of it in reviews or PM me. To all those who have been with this story from the beginning, thank you for your patients, for those who just joined, thanks for taking the time to read this :)**

**please review and make my birthday!**


End file.
